OZANAM IN HIS
CORRESPONDENCE

PRINTED AND BOUND
BY JOHN ENGLISH & CO.
WEXFORD :: IRELAND

OZANAM

IN HIS CORRESPONDENCE

BY

THE RIGHT REVEREND MONSIGNOR BAUNARD

TRANSLATED BY
A MEMBER OF THE COUNCIL OF IRELAND

OF
THE SOCIETY OF ST. VINCENT DE PAUL

NEW YORK, CINCINNATI, CHICAGO

BENZIGER BROTHERS

PRINTERS TO THE HOLY APOSTOLIC SEE

DEDICATION.

"Oo Cum 5t6ipe "O6

-A^uf

te

DECLARATION.

I declare that, in attributing in this Life, the title of saint to persons
whom the Church has not raised to the dignity of the altar, I only
use it conformably to the Decrees of Urbain VIII, dated I3th March,
1625 and 5th June, 1631. /

I declare, moreover, that I submit this work and myself to the
judgment of the Holy See, disavowing beforehand, publicly and sin
cerely, everything that would not be in conformity with the teaching
of the Holy Church, my Mother. /

I desire to live and die in obedience to Her. /

Obstat:

MICHAEL CRONIN,

Censor Theol. Deputat.

"poUst:

^ EDUARDUS,

Archiep. Dublinensit
HibcrnicB Prim as

Dublin!, die quarta Julii, 1925.

IX

INDEX

Author's Preface ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... p. xv

CHAPTER I.
EARLY YEARS, 1813-29. pp. 1-12

Ancestors, Father. — Mother. — Benoit Ozanam. — The Jew, Samuel Ozanam. —
The Christian Doctor. — The Child, — College first Communion.— Crisis of
Doubt.— The Abbe Noirot.

CHAPTER II.
FIRST LITERARY EFFORTS, 1830-31. pp. 13-25

A Lawyer's Clerk. — Faith vindicated. — A friend, Leonce Curnier,— July, 1830.
— " The Bee." — Reflexions sur la doctrine de Saint Simon. — Letters from
Lamartine and from Chateaubriand. — La Demonstration du Chnstianisme. —
Orthodoxy.

CHAPTER III.
PARIS.— CATHOLIC SOCIAL ACTION. 1831-33. pp. 26-40

Isolation in Paris.— Dangers of a boarding-house.— The great Ampere. — At
Chateaubriand's house. — Two philosophies. — Groups of young men, M. Bailly.
— Conference of History. — Montalembert's salon. — Charity and Cholera —
The Abbe Marduel.

CHAPTER IV.
DEFENCE OF TRUTH, 1832-34. pp. 41-55

Lyons friends, Lallier, Lamache. — Protests at Sorbonne lectures. — Letter to
M. Jouffroy. — The Abbe" Gerbet's Conferences. — Petition to the Archbishop of
Paris.— Conferences in Notre Dame ? — Visit to Lacordaire. — Subscription
to the Catholic University of Lou vain.

CHAPTER V.
THE CONFERENCE OF HISTORY. pp. 66-66

The Open Conference.— Defence of the Church by Speech.— In the Press, La
Tribune, La Revue contemporaine. — Saint Simonians. — L'Ami de la Religion,
M. Picot. — Barren words. — Charitable action. — " Let us go to the Poor."

x INDEX

CHAPTER VI.
THE CONFERENCE OF CHARITY. pp. 67-76

The Society of St. Vincent de Paul. — M. Bailly, President. — Ozanam, Founder.

. The beginning. — Sister Rosalie. — Ozanam with his poor. — Corpus Christi

at Nanterre. — Ampere and Ozanam. — Gustave de la Noue. — Expansion.

CHAPTER VII.
ORIENTATION, 1834. pp. 77-90

First Italian trip. — Rome. — Law or Literature. — Literary vocation. — The
struggle: " To walk between God and Death."—]. J. Ampere. — Conferences
in Stanislaus College. — Self-sacrifice to Law.— Called to the Bar.— Return
to Paris for the Degree of Doctor of Laws.

CHAPTER VIII.
THE YOUNG SOUL OF THE APOSTLE. 1835. pp. 91-105

Auguste Le Taillandier. — Patron, St. Vincent de Paul.— Sub-division of the
Conference.— Aim of the Society, through and for youth.— Salvation of souls.

Jesus Christ in the Poor. — "Devotion to Martyrdom." — Lacordaire at Notre

Dame. A Catholic Society of Fine Arts. — Bachelor of Arts.— Law Examina
tion. — His mother ill.

CHAPTER IX.

LYONS AND PARIS, 1835-36. pp. 106-119

Trip to Lyons.— Lyons and Cholera.— Les deux chanceliets d'Angleterre-
Paris, Ozanam and Lallier. — Rule of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul.-
Doctor of Laws. — Anguish as to his career. — Farewells at Paris to the
Society. — Ampere's death.

CHAPTER X.

LYONS CONFERENCE, 1836. pp. 120-130

At Monceaux with Lamartine.— Jocelyn on the Index. — Lamartine on Ozanam.
—First Lyons Conference.— Ozanam's Report.— Opposition to the Con
ference.— Growth.— Centre for soldiers.—" To be saints to make saints. -
Letters to Lallier, Secretary General. — Circular-letters. — Humility.

CHAPTER XI.

THE BAR, 1837. pp. 131-143

Ozanam's prejudice against abuses.— The defence of the poor.— Candidature for
a Law Chair.— His father's death.— Embarrassments.— Works, Des Biens de
I'Eglise against Michelet. — Scriptural controversy — Annals of the Propaga
tion of the Faith. — The case of the Archbishop of Cologne.

INDEX xi

CHAPTER XII.
DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF LITERATURE, 1839. pp. 144-158

Dante in the Disputation of the Blessed Sacrament. — The Divine Comedy :
Philosophy and Poetry. — The action of the Poem, its moral. — Life of Dante :
Beatrice. — The Poem of Expiation. — Its Symbolism. — Roman Orthodoxy.
— Elaboration. — Proof — " One cannot be more eloquent than that." — His
mother's death.

CHAPTER XIII.
LAW OF COMMERCE.— HIS VOCATION 1839-40. pp. 159-174

The Cloister or the world. — Protestantism and Liberty. — Vocation for apostolate.
— The Friar Preachers and Lacordaire. — Lacordaire in Lyons. — General
Meetings of the Society. — Opening of the Course of the Law of Commerce. —
Special higher instruction. — Candidature for a Chair of Literature. — Pro
fession of Catholic belief. — Concursus for the Higher Degree in Foreign
Literature. — First in the Competition.

CHAPTER XIV.

MARRIAGE, 1841. pp. 175-188

Voyage for research on the banks of the Rhine. — Young Belgium. — A virgin
heart. — Ideal of a spouse. — His isolation. — The Interview. — Mmlle.
Soulacroix. — Introduction, Engagement, Question of Residence. — Wedding.
— Honeymoon.

CHAPTER XV.
THE SORBONNE: ANCIENT GERMANY, 1842. pp. 189-202

Catholic awakening. — First lecture. — The Niebelungen. — Teutonism and Chris
tianity. — " The Holy Roman Empire." — Public anti- religious spirit. — Rights
and duties of a historian. — God at the end of all knowledge. — Barbarian
Italy. — Preparation for the lecture. — The Professor in the Chair. — The escort
of students. — A conquest for the Faith.

CHAPTER XVI.
MASTER AND DISCIPLES, 1841-43. pp. 203-215

Professor at Stanislaus College. — Ozanam as Examiner ; his severity. — At the
Catholic Circle. — -Easter Holy Communion in Notre Dame. — General Meeting
of the Society. — Ozanam's grave advice. — Episcopal favour. — 'Devoirs
litter air es des Chretiens. — -Religious polemics. — Approval of His Grace Arch
bishop Affre. — Attacked by I'Univers.

CHAPTER XVII.

THE CHURCH AND THE UNIVERSITY. pp. 216-228

University monopoly. — The courses of Michelet, and Quinet. — Ozanam's
refutations. — Correspondant : Ozanam and Foisset. — Montalembert's mani
festo, Ozanam's name. — His rectitude between the two parties. — M. Fauriel's

xii INDEX

death. — Promotion, Ozanam gets the position without conditions. — Stanislaus*
College, regrets and farewells. — Pere de Ravignan at a General Meeting of the
Society. — Disturbance at M. Lenormant's lectures. — Defended by Ozanam.

CHAPTER XVIII.

HOME. WORK, AND CHARITY, 1841-46. pp. 229-238

The home. — Soulacroix junior and Ozanam. — Paternity. — Lallier, godfather. —
Cross of the Legion of Honour. — The interior Christian : faith, poetry, happi
ness, labour. — Resignation of M. Bailly. — M. Gossin, President.— Catholic
Institute. — Serious illness. — Departure for Italy.

CHAPTER XIX.

MISSION TO ITALY, 1847. pp. 239-249

Florence. — Rome. — Pius IX., audience. — Catacombs. — Fraternal grief. —
Fetes and ovations to Pius IX. — Umbria, Venice. — Ballanche's death.
— Switzerland : at Echallens.

CHAPTER XX.

THE REVOLUTION OF 1848. pp. 250-262

Histoire des Girondins. — Pontifical Policy. — Rome's dangers and hopes. — " Let
us go over to the Barbarians." — Ozanam misunderstood. — The 24th
February. — Profession of faith. — Religious manifestations. — Political candida
ture. — Social action. — " The Party of Confidence."

CHAPTER XXI.
THE JUNE INSURRECTION 1848. pp. 263-275

L'Ere Nouvelle, (The New Era), Lacordaire. — His Grace Archbishop Affre. —
Ozanam on Divorce. — Ozanam with the Archbishop. — The Archbishop at the
barricades. — Death of M. Soulacroix. — Destitution in Paris. — Society of St.
Vincent de Paul, its trials and its duties. — Cholera. — St. Vincent de Paul
and Richelieu.

CHAPTER XXII.
"THE NEW ERA," 1848-49. pp. 276-296

An address : To good people. — Destitution : Causes et remedies. — Socialism. —
The Republic and the Catholic Party. — Echoes of Liberalism. — Lacordaire
withdraws. — The split. — For Venice. — For Pius IX. — Statement of The
New Era, its end. — Ozanam at Ferney. — The end of the Republic.

CHAPTER XXIII.
BELIEF AND TOLERATION. pp. 297-312

Orthodoxy. — Christian toleration. — Ozanam and dissenters. — Ernest Havet.
— Lacordaire ; " The large number of the elect." — The two schools,

INDEX xiii

honey and vinegar. — Outburst of I'Univers. — Complaint and justification
of Ozanam. — His noble pardon. — The Liberalism of his correspondence ?
— Ozanam and the Syllabus. — The Napoleonic Empire. — " Thy Kingdom

CHAPTER XXIV.
FRANCISCAN POETS, Le Ve SIECLE. pp. 313-324

Francis of Assissi. — Blessed Jacopone de Todi. — General plan of Civilisation
chretienne. — Le Ve Siecle. — Sorbonne course. — Conversion of the Franks. —
The Lesson.—" Sow."

CHAPTER XXV.
BRITTANY, ENGLAND.— PUBLICATION, 1850-51. pp. 325-339

Rest in Brittany. — M. de La Villemarque.— The publication of the V* Slide ;
The Preface. — The volume of the Poetes franciscains ; the Fioretti. — History
and Legend. — In England : the Crystal Palace and the Society of St. Vincent
de Paul. — Pauperism and Anglicanism. — Conferences at Dieppe and Sceaux.

CHAPTER XXVI.
INTIMATE LIFE. pp. 340-356

The Family, the daughter's education. — Piety, Holy Scripture, Christian home.
— Elevation of the soul : God's will. — Divine respect for the poor. — Vie de
saint Eloi. — Council- General of the Society.— Friendships. — Lallier. — The
painter, Janmot. — Falconnet. — Nourrisson. — Dufieux. — Cornudet. — Foisset. —
Lacordaire. — To Ampere : a letter of an apostle and a brother.

CHAPTER XXVII.
ILLNESS, THE PYRENEES, 1852. pp. 357-372

The last lecture. — " I shall die in your service." — To a friend in doubt: Faith.
Ill ; to the South. — Eaux-Bonnes, Gavarnie, Betharam. — Two friends :
Abbe Perreyve, Abbe Mermillod.— Biarritz. — Bayonne Conference. — The
Penitents of St. Bernard. — A run to St. Sebastian. — Three days at Burgos;
its Notre Dame. — Pelerinage an Pays du Cid. — Pilgrimage to Pouy ; The
Society. — At Buglosse. — By the Corniche to Pisa.

CHAPTER XXVIII.
IN ITALY ; WINTER AT PISA, 1852-53. pp. 373-387

The Society in Florence, the Grand Duchess. — To the members in Florence. —
Pisa. — The masses of the people. — Historical works. — Elevation of the soul. —
Tenderness at home. — Purgatory of sickness. — Sacrifices. — Consolation :
the Psalms.— Le Li we des Malades.—His last Will.

xiv INDEX

CHAPTER XXIX.
LEGHORN, LAST DAYS, MARSEILLES, 1853. pp. 388-404

Leghorn. — The Conference.— Last words. — Letter to a Jew. — Academic pro
motion. — Poem. Sur I'tcueil de San Jacopo. — L'Antignano, his visit to Con
ferences, Pontedera. — Sienna.— Report to the Council- General. — Last work.

Collapse.— Farewell to his friends in Lyons. — Two members of the Society,
the brothers Bevilacqua. — The Mass on the Feast of the Assumption.—
Farewell to L' Antignano. — The crossing.— Marseilles ; A holy death.

EPILOGUE.

THE LITERARY AND CHARITABLE LEGACY. pp. 405-417

Sympathy and hopes of heaven for the deceased. — The Dean of the Faculty of
Literature, Leclerc. — De La Villemarque.— Brothers in the Society — Monta-
lembert.— The Abbe Perreyve.— Rev»Pere de Villefort.— President Baudon —
M. Cornudet.— Lallier.— M. Guizot.— The Bishops.— Pius IX to Madame

Ozanam.

His legacy.— Literary work.— Edition of his complete works.— Bordin
Prize. — M. Villemain.— Charitable work.— Rev. Pere Monsabre.— Multiplica
tion of Conferences.— Golden Jubilee of the Society.— The Encyclical of Leo
XIII.— Society statistics.— Society Orthodoxy.— An urgent social necessity.

APPENDIX.

Two unpublished letters of Ozanam to his mother.— Like letter of Ozanam to
M. Lucien Perret. — Five letters of Ozanam to his brother Charles.— Note on
the number of the first members of the first Conference.

AUTHOR'S PREFACE

The traditional Mass was celebrated in the crypt of the Carmelite
Church, rue de Vaugirard, on the loth April, 1910, the second Sunday
after Easter, the occasion being the Feast-day and the date of the
annual general meeting of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul in Paris.
The Council General of the Society and a large number of members
were present. /

The historic crypt contains the body of Frederick Ozanam, which
has lain there under a simple monument since 1853. -' The Abbe
Guibert, a priest of St. Sulpice, Superior of the ancient ecclesiastical
House of Carmelites, which is now the Seminary of the Catholic
Institute, preached a sermon appropriate to the occasion and to
the place. / He first did honour to the name of the first patron of
the Society, St. Vincent de Paul. He then proceeded to refer to
the second, whom the place itself brought to the minds of all.
Frederick Ozanam became then, and continued to be, the subject of
his address. /

The priest spoke of him not only " as a model to be imitated, and
a patron to be honored, but already a protector to be invoked, if not
in public, at least in the secret of one's heart."/ He honoured him
as " the principal founder of the Society, a fact which has been ac
credited to him already by tradition, the universal voice which is not-'v
deceived."/ He expressed the general desire of Conferences for
the day on which, with the sanction of the Church, it would be given
to them to worship him solemnly in public. / Examining the condi- -
tions required by the Church for such elevation, the venerable preacher
gave it as his opinion that they were admirably fulfilled by the life
and the doctrine and the good works of that just man ; by a life of
piety and innocence, by a doctrine of propaganda of faith ; by good
works of corporal and spiritual amelioration, which have together
made him an incomparable apostle of truth and charity in the world./
The love of God was his principle, the salvation of souls his aim./

xvi FREDERICK OZANAM

The same address did not hesitate to describe the Society of St. Vincent
de Paul as " an Association of piety no less than a Congregation of
Charity."/

" Now," the preacher asks himself, " when, within the Church, a
Christian Society has sent its roots deep down into souls, and spread
afar its branches laden with fruit ; when it draws its sap from a pure
and intense religious life, is one not right in concluding that that
Society is of God, that the heart from which it sprang was filled with
God, and that the brow of the founder is worthy to bear the aureola ?
The vitality and the efficacy of his action are the guarantee and the
consecration of his virtues./

" Were those Christian virtues practised by Ozanam in the heroic
degree ? The Church will decide that. But it is for us, gentlemen,
to bring his cause before Her. We may be sure that it will be examined
with the liveliest sympathy."/

The sermon closed with two requests. One that the life of our
Founder should be more widely studied and more deeply meditated
on. The second, that a greater part of all future biographies should be
devoted to the interior, Christian, apostolic features of that life ; in
a word, to the " eminent virtues of that true saint."/

It is in answer to that wish, with which the Council General and the
meeting associated themselves, that the present work was undertaken. /

Why was I, in my old age, selected as the author of this work ?
It is not for me to say. I have only to apologise for demurring too
long to insistent appeals. While recognising the great honour which
was paid me, I looked at the task with dismay. I was in my eighty-
third year. I had just published my last work, Le Vieillard. I had
only just completed the payment of a great debt of admiration and
gratitude in Les deux Frhes. f Was not that the close of my work ?
Did I not feel that I had come to the end of my strength ? Was this
eleventh hour of my life the time to undertake such a work ? Was
I about to open a new furrow which I should, in all probability, never
close ?/

Therefore I sought to be excused What was then the

incentive which induced me to give way, to submit my weary head,
first with resignation and then with joy, to the yoke of obedience,
which I now recognised to be sweet and the burden thereof light ? /

In the first place, I loved Ozanam from my early youth. Was not
he, whose life I was about to write, in Pere Guibert's words, " The

AUTHOR'S PREFACE xvii

great Catholic of his age ?" In the second place, I loved the Society
of St. Vincent de Paul, which can do so much for the Church to-day,
by its fidelity to the spirit and to the grace which God had deposited
in that Vessel of election. / Again, I loved the young men of the schools,
whom I served for sixty years, and of whom Ozanam was a perfect
model. / Lastly, shall I admit it, the selfish thought of passing a year,
and that perhaps my last, with such a soul, such a mind, such a heart,
in continuous communion with him, enlightening my gloom, stimulat
ing my tepidity, consoling my loneliness, detaching me from this
earth, and even, giving me advance glimpses of heaven ! / . . . .
That prospect won the day. Could I shut my door to that guest,
to such a friend ? No, he shall be welcome. The book shall be
written, and written with love. It shall be at least begun ; finished,
if I can. But that is in God's hands. Great and good Ozanam, enter !

I entertain the same wish for those who will read this book, that
they may live intimately and constantly with him. /

Many have written about Frederick Ozanam before me. I place
in the forefront his brother, the missionary. He has, in his incomplete
biography, given us a store-house of domestic particulars which no
other could have furnished. / Next come the two illustrious friends,
Lacordaire and Ampere, each of whom has woven a beautiful crown,
with which to adorn Ozanam's brow; Lacordaire with eloquence,
Ampere with literary charm, both with love./ Many other friends
have written obituary notices or literary appreciations : M. de la Ville-
marque, Dr. Dufresne of Geneva, chosen disciples in Stanislaus College
or in the Sorbonne, M. Caro, the Abbe Perreyve, M. Heinrich, M.
Maxime de Montrond, M. Urbain Legeay his former master, a
member of the Society, the holy Comte de Lambel, his intimate
friend Dufieux, etc., .f . .

. The important work of M. Charles Huit, Professor in the Catholic
Institute of Paris, appeared later, published under the auspices of
Cardinal Perraud. There is an original work on La Jeunesse d' Ozanam,
written by M. Leonce Curnier, which was crowned by the Academy.
There is also a biographical and critical review written by M. Bernard
Faulquier, a distinguished member of the Society of St. Vincent de
Paul, with a preface from the hand of Monsignor Baudrillart. /

I note particularly the Frederick Ozanam of Kathleen O'Meara,
who was an Irishwoman, and in whose accounts I find with pleasure
traces of conversation with Ozanam's widow. /

xviii FREDERICK OZANAM

A short biography comes from Canada. A moral study on Ozanam's
correspondence comes to us from a Protestant source ! It is the
work of a Protestant Pietist lady of Geneva, Madame Humbert, who
was edified and inspired by the virtue and by the greatness of soul
which she found in his correspondence. Then there are literary ap
preciations, such as the excellent one by M. Poulin, £loge d'Ozanam,
which was crowned in the Floral Fetes in Toulouse, etc. /

I desire to mention all such, or nearly all, because I am indebted
to all, though in a different degree ; and because all are unanimous
in venerating and admiring that outstanding superiority of virtue,
thus anticipating in their hearts his religious worship. /

But I felt that those excellent productions, biographies, notices,
articles, detached studies, while useful to consult, were yet only sketches,
and that the complete history of Ozanam was yet to be written./ If,
as the priest had said at his tomb, the exterior man, the man of science,
the author, has left an illustrious name ; if even the man of good works
has left a memory which has been blessed the world over ; on the
other hand, the interior man, the moral and religious man, the man
of God, has not yet been adequately presented to the public. /The
time is then come to write this history, the history of his soul, — that
great soul ! — and to show it in each and all the acts of a life which it
inspired and animated. / We have that soul still living in his speech.
Ozanam has left it immortal in his works and in his correspondence.
If the interior life of the man is yet to be written, it has no longer to
be sought for, it still exists in power and in matter There we
shall find it./

We shall find the interior Ozanam firstly in his lectures. Ozanam's
soul is not abstracted from, nor disinterested in the subject
matter of his instruction./ He is there with all his faculties of judg
ment, admiration and disapproval, of benediction and condemnation.
He is to be seen in the beautiful moral deductions which he draws,
in the instruction which he provides for the audience and the readers ;
in his realistic treatment, in the practical application of his lectures
to his age and his country, in the homage which he makes all times and
places pay to the Eternal King ; sometimes too, in the melancholy in
trospection on his life, death, affections, sufferings, which furnish the
pathos of his works. /

But if the life and soul of Ozanam are to be seen in his written
works, his correspondence is, if I may so express it, filled to over-

AUTHOR'S PREFACE xix

flowing with them./ His whole existence, his family life, his friend
ships, his life of action, are there reconstituted in the natural sequence
of the events, in their order of date, with every surrounding circum
stance of time and place, in their true sense and colour. / Likewise,
his whole soul is manifested there, showing its development in each
phase of its existence. / First of his youth : noble aspirations, grandiose
designs, the torture occasioned by a choice of life, the call, the ebb
and flow of hope and despondency, the sacred intoxication of Science
and Faith. /Then of his mature age : his struggles on behalf of purity,
his pure love, his enthusiasm for Truth and Charity, his all-conquering
zeal, his independence of conscience, his delicacy of heart, the cruel
deception and false wounds which he had to suffer./ Lastly, the de
cline, not of age, but of premature life : a tireless and sanctified activity,
a crucifixion to his pen, to his professorial chair, which Lacordaire
had indicated to him. Finally, the consummation, the sacrifice :
supernatural suffering, the tranquil heroism of sublime sacrifice./ To
bloom, to ripen, to die ; such would be the epigraph of this book, as
it is the plan and the development of that crowded, elevated and
brief span of life ! /

The greater part of that Correspondence has been published. Some
other letters have been privately shown to me by her who has received
the treasure as an inheritance and who guards them religiously as a
father's relics.*/ She is to be thanked for that./ Some other letters,
up to then un-edited, have fortunately been found. f / There is in all
a collection of some two hundred letters, which are the whole basis
of this work, the warp and woof of the piece. All my Ozanam is
there and always there, not only his traces, but his voice, his speech,
his very life ; his life in all its truth, his speech in all its frankness,
his voice breathing its most beautiful accents, letters which are the
most beautiful of his works because they resemble him most closely.
It is he who is speaking and writing, not I, who have provided only
the wire for this wreath of choice blooms. Nobody, least of all the
writer, will lose by that./

What is then the figure which, partly hidden from our eyes, rises

* Madame Laurent Laporte Ozanam died on the 26th June, 1911, immediately
after the publication of this Life, to which she had contributed greatly, and which
brought her great joy. She died, alas ! before the Centenary celebration of her
father, which would have been a very dear pleasure to her. /

t Other such letters, which have since come to light, are published in
the Appendix (Translator's note) . /

xx FREDERICK OZANAM

over the horizon at this dark hour to light our way with its gentle
radiance ? " Like St. Vincent de Paul, Ozanam was an apostle : an
apostle of Truth, an apostle of Charity." Everything is comprised
in those words, spoken in the crypt of the Carmelites. /

J "" Apostle of Truth, that is of Catholic Truth which he always under
took to defend. At the age of seventeen Ozanam drew up his plan ;
at eighteen he opened the attack against Saint Simonism ; at twenty
he raised the standard in the Sorbonne against the anti-Catholicity
of Jouffroy ; at twenty-one he waited on the Archbishop of Paris
to appeal for modern instruction in Notre Dame ; at thirty he en
throned Truth with eloquence in a professorial chair in the Sorbonne.*
He devoted himself to the defence of Truth up to the last breath of
his breaking body : "Our life belongs to you, gentlemen. As for me,

— if I die, it will be in your service." That was his farewell./

Apostle of Charity. At twenty years of age he inaugurated with
a few students the first Conference of St. Vincent de Paul : " Let us
go to the poor."/ From Paris, from Lyons, he extended the benefit
to France, later to both hemispheres : " I wish," he said, " to enfold

^the whole world with a net-work of charity."/ Before closing his
eyes for ever in this world he could count two thousand such centres
of charity, of which the Lord has said: " I came to bring light into
the world ; what can I desire but that it should shine everywhere ?"/
Less than a month before his death he dragged his broken frame from
Leghorn to Sienna to make straight the path for a little band of
students, his last creation. Having accomplished that, he embarked
to see France and die. /

j^ He died at forty. He had given everything to God by a solemn
act : " I come, Lord." He is to be seen during a long year,
dragging himself, stumbling from one station to another of his Calvary./
As an ailing son will seek the comfort of his mother, he is to be seen
by turns at the feet of Our Lady of Burgos, Our Lady of Betharam,

- Our Lady of Buglosse, Our Lady of Pisa, and finally resting at the
feet of Our Lady de la Garde. / It was there that the Queen of Heaven
awaited him, to raise him from his death-bed and to take him up
beside Her into the Mansion of the Heavenly Father. / That was on

ff -*• * M. Guibert adds : " Such was his exactitude of conscience that, in all questions
touching faith, the Church had no son more submissive to her directions. If
he shared certain liberal ideas of his time, it was through the very nobility of
his heart and through the very love that he bore to religion and to his brethren,
not through any deviation whatever from the teaching of the Church, f

AUTHOR'S PREFACE xxi

the Feast of her Nativity, on the 8th September, 1853. / I do not —^
know anything grander or greater than that dolorous pilgrimage of a
heart sustained by the spirit of a soul filled with Heaven which it was
entering. There is no more divine picture in the history of the saints./-u

Let us not hastily call him by that great name. Let us write the
life just as it was, let us show the man just as he existed, under the
earthly conditions of our mortality, without any other interest than
that of Truth. Ozanam would not have tolerated anything else.y
Let us not celebrate his virtues, let us simply say what they were.
Let us not praise his thoughts, let us unfold them. / Let us not pro
claim Blessed that man of mercy, of peace, of meekness, who hungered -•'
and thirsted for justice ; but let us recall his works of mercy, of
clemency, of meekness, of justice and of peace. / Let us not salute
him prematurely as a Confessor of Faith ; let us see how he confessed
it before friends and enemies. / Let us not award him the martyr's
crown, let us see how he suffered for the love of Jesus Christ and died
in the burning love of the Heart of Him of Whom he said : " How
could I fear Him ? I love Him so much."/

After that there remains for us silence and prayer ! " Let us not
renounce for one moment our ambition in his regard. But let us *>
cherish it by multiplying the Associations which he promoted, and
by practising the virtues that distinguished him. / Then, in full con
fidence, let us allow the Church to do its own work, in its wisdom and
in its own good time. Did not the preacher in the crypt assure us,
" that if the cause of the pious founder were taken to Rome, it
would be examined with the liveliest sympathy." /

That is no longer in doubt after the many marks of favour which
the Society of St. Vincent de Paul has received in later years from
His Holiness Pius X. It is scarcely three years, the nth April,
1909, since a pilgrimage of the Conferences of St. Vincent de Paul
arrived in Rome at the same time as the Roman ceremonies of the
Beatification of Joan of Arc were being celebrated. /The official organ - A*
of the Vatican, L'Osservatore Romano, seized the opportunity to join
Ozanam 's name in the celebrations under the heading : Dopo cento
anni : Giovanna d'Arco, Frederico Ozanam. One hundred years after :
Joan of Arc and Frederick Ozanam./ It continued : " It is not a mere
fortuitous coincidence that links up the celebrations in honour of the
Blessed Joan of Arc with those of the approaching Centenary celebra
tion of the birth of Frederick Ozanam, one of the heroes and apostles

xxii FREDERICK OZANAM

of Charity in France. / An intimate bond unites the celebrations of
those two glorious children of France, etc." / The Bulletin of the
Society noted the comments of I'Osservatore, as follows : "It is the
first time, we believe, that our venerated Founder has been placed side
by side with a Blessed on the altars. Are we to see in that a fore
taste of a higher and purer glory than that of earthly renown ?"/

On the i6th April, in the same year, the name of Ozanam was
associated by the Sovereign Pontiff himself with that of St. Vincent
de Paul in regard to an Association, which he regarded as the younger
sister of the second religious family of the great Founder. / His Holiness
spoke as follows :

" Vincent de Paul, who lives in the Congregation of the Fathers of
the Mission, and in the incomparable Sisters of Charity, lives in our
day in the admirable Association of Conferences, the inheritors of
his faith, of his charity, and of his apostolic spirit. / It is a new
generation, an unexpected and numerous posterity, which has carried
everywhere the choice fruits of benediction. / The mustard-seed sown
by Ozanam in 1833 is to-day a mighty tree. It extends its branches
throughout the entire world and is the rallying centre for all the
missions of the earth."/

Yet another address from the same august lips affirms the spiritual
affinity of the two apostles of charity, and the union of their souls
and their lives, derived one through the other " from the springs of
the Saviour," as the Church expresses it. /

His Grace, Dr. Blenk, Archbishop of New Orleans, had just made at
that time a report to His Holiness Pius X on the good works performed
by the Society of St. Vincent de Paul in the Dioceses of Louisiana.
Whereupon His Holiness said : " Yes, indeed, it is in that way that
the spirit of St. Vincent de Paul, and of the great Founder Ozanam
is manifested. It is indeed in that way, that the heart of the people
will be won to God. "/When His Grace requested His Holiness to
pray for the general extension of the Society in the New World, the
Holy Father replied : " That is my constant prayer. I have no more
ardent desire than to see that Society carry to the ends of the earth
the spirit and the life of Ozanam, which is the life of that great apostle
of Charity St. Vincent de Paul, which is itself the life of the Divine
Saviour."* f

*On his return from Europe in October, Archbishop Blenk presided over an
extraordinary general meeting of more than one thousand members, for the

AUTHOR'S PREFACE xxiii

Let us cherish those words. There is light from them ; is it the
dawn ? I do not desire to see more by their light than the honour
in which the person and the work of Ozanam are held in high place.
I find encouragement in them for suitable steps to be taken, in full
submission to the regulations and conditions which the Church wisely
imposes on the most legitimate desires of her children. They are,
in fine, a call to prayer until that day of common recollection, which
is approaching and which will strengthen our confidence. /

The 23rd April, 1913, will see the Centenary of the Birth of Frederick
Ozanam. The Society of St. Vincent de Paul proposes to celebrate
the event very solemnly, to give a new impetus to his good works,
and revivify the apostolic spirit in its members, by making the
memory and the example of its Founder more widely known. /

Paris will, of course, be the centre of such celebrations. But the
eyes of our members will be turned to Rome, as they bear their homage
to the feet of Pius X, as formerly Ozanam bore it to the feet of Pius
IX, to renew faith, to receive the word of command, to listen to the
holy oracle, and to bring back hope and benediction./ I shall not be
of the number of those pilgrims to Rome, perhaps not even a spectator
of the earthly celebrations ; I shall be content at having been per
mitted, if I may so express it, to intone the Vespers. But if the
Master of Life deigns to extend mine to that day, I shall receive on
bended knees the words of light and strength from the Vicar of Christ,
which shall be carried forth to millions and millions of Christians./
If Ozanam 's name receives special religious prominence in expressions
of gratitude and veneration, I shall draw an augury from that in favour
of a still more solemn event. That will indeed be for my old age a
final great joy, it will be equally the highest and most precious reward
which this world can offer for this Book. /

Gruson, Villa Jeanne d'Arc.
Christmas 1911.

celebration of the Golden Jubilee of their foundation in the St. Louis Cathedral.
The Bishops of Natchez, Okahama, Natchitoches and Mobile were present.
When the evening meeting had been opened with the Veni Creator, tne Arch
bishop announced from the pulpit that he had been charged by the Holy Father
with a very special message for them. He quoted the above statement of the
Holy Father, word for word, and gave an account of his audience. (Bulletin,
January 1910, p. 24). /

FREDERICK OZANAM

IN HIS CORRESPONDENCE.

CHAPTER I.
HIS EARLY YEARS.

ANCESTORS. — FAMILY. — EDUCATION. — THE CRISIS OF DOUBT.
THE ABBli NOIROT.

1813-29.

Frederick Ozanam was born on the 23rd day of April, 1813, in
Milan, which was at that time a French city. His parents came of
old French descent and were of the old faith. /

His father, Jean-Antonine-Frangois Ozanam, who was born at
Chalamont, near Trevoux, was a man of character. In that he was
the worthy son of Benedict Ozanam, one of the twelve castellans
of Dombes, and of Elizabeth Baudin. The latter was a descendant
of the family of La Condumine and of the ancient house of Saillans,
whose first scion died in 1792, at the head of 20,000 men, fighting in
the Jales camp for the Royalist cause. /

After an honours course in classics in the Oratorian College in Lyons,
Jean-Antoine enlisted at the age of 20 in the Berchiny hussar regiment,
in which he displayed conspicuous gallantry under General Bonaparte
at the battles of Millesimo, Mondovi, Pavia, Lodi, Castiglione, Arcole
and Rivoli. / He retired at the age of 25, severely wounded, with
the rank of captain. He was identified with a successful diplomatic
mission to General Souwaroff , with the capture of a Neapolitan General,
Prince Cattolica, whom he took prisoner at Bologna, and with the

2 FREDERICK OZANAM

taking of a Uhlan Standard, which he presented to Bonaparte. He
succeeded in retaining the esteem and confidence of that great General. (

The soldier was also a devoted and fearless son. He was, on one
occasion, during the days of the Terror, on his way with his regiment
from Bourg, his garrison town, to Vienne in Dauphiny./ He
made a detour at the mart of Meximieux in order to pay a visit to his
mother in the neighbouring town of Chalamont. To his great amaze
ment he found her in a state of consternation. Her husband had just
been denounced, arrested and imprisoned at Ambronay near Amberieu,
whence he would most probably depart for the scaffold. / Jean-
Antoine jumped into the saddle, took with him two hussars armed
to the teeth, galloped to Bourg, where, as he knew, the Committee
of Public Safety was sitting. He forced his way into the Committee
Chamber, and pistol in hand, demanded an order for release, which
he took away with him. Then he set off at full gallop to outdistance
the gendarmes whom the Committee hurled in pursuit, as soon as it
had recovered from its stupefaction. There was scarce time to re
assure his mother as he dashed past to rejoin his regiment. Luckily
his absence had not been noted. /

Young, rich, handsome, amiable, witty, gay, this promising officer
resigned from the Army on the establishment of the Empire. He
married Marie Nantas, the daughter of a prosperous merchant in Lyons.
They established themselves in business in Paris, where they were
succeeding admirably until he signed a bill for a bankrupt relative
and brought about his own ruin. /It seemed that he would then
have to resume the sword. Some former comrades-in-arms spoke on
his behalf to the victor of Arcole, now Emperor of the French./ The
rank of Captain in the Imperial Guard was offered to the former
brilliant hussar officer. But as he was not a lover of the Empire he
declined the offer, preferring loyalty to his convictions to that great
honour and brilliant prospects. / He then determined to rely on his
own efforts and set out for Milan. When he had settled there he sent
for his young family. He occupied his time very fully in following a
course of medicine, and in giving private lessons as a tutor. / He used
to relate in after years how he trudged on foot every three months,
from Milan to Pavia, for his examinations. / Two years sufficed to
complete his course with honours and to become qualified as a Medical
Doctor. He distinguished himself almost immediately by a learned
work in Italian which brought his name to the notice of the scientists

PARENTS 3

of the day, Count Moscati, Locatelli, Scarpa, who all esteemed his
work very highly./ In the year 1813 he is to be found heroically
performing the duties of a visiting physician to the Milan Military
Hospital, when that city was swept by an epidemic of typhus fever. /
Two of his colleagues had died of the plague ; Ozanam, alone, remained
to minister by the bedsides of the hundreds of patients. It was his
field of battle. /Nor did the commander quit the post of danger until
the dreaded enemy had beaten a retreat. For his services on that
occasion he was decorated by Napoleon, King of Lombardy, with the
Iron Crown. Heaven granted him a still greater reward. It was in
that same year, 1813 that Antoine Frederick was born, the fifth child
of a family of fourteen. /

The son wrote in later years of the father in the following terms :—

" While passing through camps, revolutions, and many forms of
adversity, my father preserved an ardent faith, a noble character, a
high regard for justice, a tireless charity towards the poor. He loved
Science, Art, and Work. He inspired us with a taste for the beautiful
and the sublime."/

Such, indeed, in a few words is the intellectual, moral, and religious
inheritance which Ozanam received from his father. It is a great
help forward on the path of virtue to be able to walk in the footsteps
of those of our name who have shown us the way as torchbearers or
pioneers. /

Not less exemplary were the light and leading which he received
irom the life of his mother./

Born on the i8th July, 1781, Marie Nantas' recollections in child
hood dated back to the horrors of the Siege of Lyons in 1793, when
.•she and her sisters had lived in the cellars. She could remember
her father, one of the leading silk-merchants of the city, appointed
•Captain of his section, devoting his days and nights to the defence
of the ramparts. When the city was taken she could remember her
brother, Jean-Bap tiste, scarce 18 years of age, shot at Brotteaux, with
the flower of the youth of Lyons. Her parents only escaped the scaffold
by flight. They found a refuge for themselves and their family at
Echallens, in the Canton of Vaud in Switzerland, between the two
beautiful lakes of Geneva and Neufchatel. Thither an old uncle,
a former Prior of the Carthusians of Premol accompanied them.
Marie could remember that it was there in a poor little church, in
-which both Catholics and Protestants worshipped, that she had made

4 FREDERICK OZANAM

her first Holy Communion. With the restoration of peace, the family
returned to Lyons to recover, not their property, but their rank.
Monsieur Nantas was one of the deputation to offer in 1798 an official
welcome to General Bonaparte, then on his way to take over at Toulon
the command of the Egyptian expedition./

Reared in such a hard school, one fit to train a fearless
woman, the wife of Jean-Antoine did not shrink from the trials of
poverty nor from the manual labour which her husband's reverses
and the necessities of a growing family entailed. The example of the
brave man who, at the age of 36 years, triumphed over every difficulty
in far-away Milan, to carve out a new career for his family, supported
her. It was in 1815, when the Austrians entered Milan, that the
patriotic Frenchman, not wishing to live himself nor to rear a family
under a foreign domination, brought back his young family to Lyons.
Even there the struggle for existence for a new and unknown doctor
was hard ; still harder for the mother of a family of fourteen
children eleven of whom died in tender years. /

But she did not indulge in idle tears like those who have no hope.
At each death her streaming eyes were raised to Heaven. Frederick
could write later as follows : " On how many occasions have I not
seen my parents in tears ; when Heaven had left them but three
children out of fourteen ! But how often, too, have not those three
survivors, in adversity and in trial, counted on the assistance of those
brothers and sisters whom they had among the angels ! Such are
indeed also of the family, and are brought back to our minds in acts
of unexpected assistance. Happy is the home that can count one
half its members in Heaven, to help the rest along the narrow way
which leads there !" /

The name of an admirable servant of the family, Guigui (Marie
Cruziat) must here be associated with that of Madame Ozanam. She
had entered the service of Frederick's grandparents when a child,
her integrity was unassailable and her thrift fabulous. She was a
woman of shrewd and sound judgment and of extraordinary loyalty
and devotion, who insisted in hard times on adding her mite to the
scanty income of her beloved masters. /

Better days did dawn at length. The Doctor became known
through his contributions to medical journals and when an election
was held for the much coveted position of Doctor to the Guild Hall,
he secured first place. The Royal Academy of Science in Lyons did

ANCESTORS 5

honour to his works and admitted him to membership. From 1830
on, we find contributions from his pen appearing in the Revue des
Deux-Mondes, and we find his name held in esteem by the whole
medical profession. /

It was not indeed for the first time that the name of Ozanam had
been heard of in the select circles of the learned societies of Lyons.
The Academy counted among its scientific celebrities of the I7th
century one Jacques Ozanam who arrived in that city at the age of
20 in the year 1660. He taught mathematics with such renown that
ten years later d'Aguesseau summoned him to Paris to co-operate
in the work of the Academy of Science, and to take the chair of Higher
Mathematics in the University. That mathematical work he pursued
by means of studies and lectures. Fontenelle delivered the panegyric
of the " celebrated mathematician." This great- grand-uncle of
Frederick was pre-eminently a Christian savant. " I desire," he
wrote, " that physical Science shall be Christian as I teach it, and that -,
it shall lead to God." He was more Christian in his domestic than in
his public life. He was simple in character, unselfish, a father of
twelve children, who were as religious as he. Inviolably attached to
his religion, he boldly answered the Jansenists, and later the Encyclo
pedists of the time :" It is for the Doctors of the Sorbonne to debate,
for the Pope to decide, and for mathematicians to go to Heaven by
the perpendicular."/

Indeed, if tradition and family records may be trusted, it is necessary
to seek much further back for the source of that legacy of religion.
It is related that at the beginning of the 7th century, the Archbishop
of Vienne, St. Didier, flying from the persecution of Queen Brunhild,
found a refuge in the house of a rich Jew of Dombes named Samuel
Hosannam in the town of Boulignieux, the over- lord of which he was.
St. Didier took advantage of the opportunity to preach the Gospel to
him. He converted Hosannam and his large family. The Bishop was
martyred soon after, but the seal of baptism remained engraven on the
long line of his neophyte, their ancestor in the faith./

To that patrimony of service and merit Doctor Ozanam brought
a great charity towards the poor. Lyons can still recall that " the
Doctor combined the soundest medical advice with the most wonderful
devotion. At least a third of his clients were free. With him the
profession of medicine was a true work of charity. He did not even
confine himself to giving his medical services free to the poor whom he

6 FREDERICK OZANAM.

visited, he also shared his heart with them, seeking to console them
in their misfortunes. His was more than compassion, his was true
religion, for he saw in the poor the Divine Person. He has been seen
on his knees at the bedside of the sick joining with the invalid in asking
for the clemency of the Divine Healer." It was reserved for him, as will
be seen later, to die in the very exercise of that Christian ministry./

The practice of medicine under such unselfish conditions did not
enrich the Doctor. It secured for him, however, a moderate com
petency, which his son declared to be proper, free, and most con
formable to a life of dignity and virtue. " I wish to thank God,"
he wrote, " for having been born in middle class society, neither rich
nor poor, which accustoms one to the idea of privation without the
complete deprivation of all reasonable enjoyment : wherein one cannot
be enslaved by the gratification of every desire, but wherein also one
is not continually distracted by the grinding necessities of poverty.
Then follows this humble opinion of himself joined to an act of thanks
giving : " God alone knows what dangers would have lurked for me,
with the natural instability of my character, in the luxury of riches
or the dejection of poverty./

Frederick was delicate in youth. At the age of six he was almost
carried off by typhoid fever. " My parents," he recalls, " did not
leave my bedside, day or night, for a fortnight. Everyone believed
that I won through only by a miracle." The miracle was attributed
to St. Francis Regis, patron of Vivarais. Devotion to that saint was
then very ardent and a chapel had been dedicated to him in the Church
of St. Polycarpe in Lyons./

In a letter dated 5th January, 1830, written to a college friend, M.
Materne, Ozanam draws this severe portrait of himself : " I was never
worse than I was at the age of eight. I had become headstrong,
passionate and disobedient. If I were punished, I revolted ; I wrote
letters of complaint to my mother ; I was frightfully lazy. Every
imaginable trick came into my head, notwithstanding the fact that a
good father, an excellent mother, and a gentle sister were conducting
my education."

As a companion, and at the same time a contrast to that portrait,
we have the following from the hand of his elder brother, the Abbe
Alphonse Ozanam, his biographer : " Frederick was, it is true, a quick
tempered child, head- strong in his desires, extremely sensitive and
impressionable. But he was tender to little children, compassionate

EDUCATION 7

with every form of suffering, of an angelic purity which shrank from
the most venial fault, an impossible subject for evil, an enthusiastic
devotee of good." Whereof he gives examples. /

Frederick was early brought into contact with the poor clients of
his parents. Madame Ozanam had presided for the best part of her
life over an Association of working women called " The Watchers,"
whose duty it was to minister in turn, by the bedside of the sick poor.
In later years, husband and wife, now growing old, bound themselves
mutually never to mount higher than the fourth storey of a tenement
in the course of their arduous charitable mission. But only a short
time after that solemn pact and covenant was made, they caught one
another flagrante delicto on the threshold of a garret under the roof.
It was, one day, to cost the brave doctor his life. Frederick had the
example of twenty years of such devoted charity before his eyes.

His Christian education was mainly the work of his excellent and
intelligent mother. He could say of her before God :" It is at her
knees that I learned to fear You, O Lord ! and from her looks to love
You." Schooled in sacrifice, she was equal to all the demands of family
life as well as of society. The moral influence of her sweet
sway made her " the best obeyed and the most beloved of
mothers," and her cultured intelligence elevated her above
the average lady of her position. She spoke and wrote well,
could draw nicely, had good taste in literature, trying her hand at little
occasional verses, neatly turned and better declaimed. No family
feast was complete without a joyful song from that delightful mother.

Frederick was desirous that in recounting the work of his education,
the name of his sister, Eliza, the eldest of the family, should be associa
ted with that of his mother. He wrote eighteen years later to a friend in
the following feeling terms : " I had a dearly beloved sister who co
operated with my mother in my education, whose instruction was so
gentle, so well arranged, so well suited to my childish intelligence,
that it afforded me genuine pleasure. That explains why it was possible
to say that as a child I was gentle and tractable ; it has been attributed
to my physical delicacy, but the moral influence of my sister is another
and a more compelling cause. I was seven years old when that good
sister died at the age of nineteen. Oh ! How I was stricken with grief !"

Almost at the close of his, alas ! too brief career, Ozanam recalled,
during one of his lectures at the Sorbonne and in a voice already broken
by suffering, the transfigured images of his mother and sister :

8 FREDERICK OZANAM

" Gentlemen, however vast this world may appear to be, it is yet too
narrow for us, for our desires and for our hopes, especially since after
a brief while it will have but six feet of clay to offer us. It is too
confined for our memories of the past, especially for those who had a
mother who loved the poor and loved us, who spent herself that we
might be men of good-will : and for those who had a sister who left
this earth before she knew any other love than the love of God. Do
we not feel the need for a better world in which to place them ? Do
we not believe that they are aiding us from on high when a happy
inspiration occurs to us ? When we recall those dear faces do we not
imbue them with some new beauty, until we behold them perfect and
immortal, thus adding for ourselves another chapter to the history of
the saints ?"

Frederick at the age of nine, after a preparation by his father,
entered the fifth class in the Royal College of Lyons, which was then
directed by a priest. " There," he himself states, " I gradually
became better. The spirit of emulation conquered my laziness. I
liked my masters and studied hard. My success led me on so that I
began to get proud. But I had much improved since I entered. I
then fell ill and had to go to the country for a month. In the fourth
class I did not do so well, but pulled up again in the third. This was
the year of my first Holy Communion."

Ozanam saluted that event : " O day of days ! May my tongue
cleave to my palate if ever I forget thee ! The improvement in my
disposition was plain to be seen. I had become modest, gentle and
tractable ; but I could still be proud and passionate."

The College lectures of a celebrated missionary during the Lent of
1826 seem to have made a deep impression on him at the age of thirteen.
His notes on the sermons contain the following sentence which is for
him the one that matters : " Young men, it is in your training here
to be good Christians that you will be trained at the same time to be
good citizens, and to learn to fill with honour the careers in which you
will be called upon to serve your God and your country." Such was,
in his opinion, the sum total of duty. The missionary priest
was none other than the future Cardinal Donnet, Archbishop of
Bordeaux.

The young student astonished his masters. The beautiful as well
as the good was enthroned in his soul and emitted rays of poetry and
eloquence not to be expected at that tender age. In his thirteenth

THE HORROR OF DOUBT 9

year he composed pieces in French, frequently in Latin, in prose and
verse in every metre, which his professors showed to one another and
to their pupils as little short of marvellous. The subject matter
consisted of national or sacred historical episodes ; occasionally of
contemporary events, as the embarcation of the French in the War
for the independence of Greece. But mostly he treated of the Divine
Mysteries and of the praises of the Blessed Virgin. Occasionally, too,
domestic scenes, taken from life and treated with charming sincerity
and grace appeared from his pen. Before his fifteenth year he
was able to fill a little volume with his poetic compositions, which he
offered on New Year's Day to his parents with a double dedication, in
Latin for his father and in French for his mother ; nor would it be easy
to say in which of the two languages he speaks with greater delicacy
and tenderness.*

Yet it is in the midst of this serene life of study and piety, in his
fifteenth year, that Ozanam was to find the clear sky of his faith
troubled with clouds, and his heart shaken with the terror of doubt.
Up to that time he had believed as a child, but as a thoughtful child ;
he was now to pay for the precocity and the restless activity of his
intellectual life. He himself took the students of the schools into his
confidence when dedicating to them his first lectures at the Sorbonne
on Christian Civilisation in the Filth Century. His Preface dated
Good Friday, 1851, two years before his death, contains the following :
" In the midst of an age of scepticism, God gave me the grace to be
born in the true faith. As a child I listened at the feet of a Christian
father and a saintly mother. I had as my earliest teacher an intelligent
sister, as pious as the angels whom she has gone to join. Later, the
muffled din of an unbelieving world reached me. I experienced all the
horror of doubt, which by day gnaws at the soul without ceasing, and
by night hovers over our pillows that grow wet with idle tears.
Uncertainty as to eternity left me no rest. In despair I grasped at
sacred dogma, only to find it crumbling in my hands. Then it was that
the teaching of a priest, who was also a philosopher, came to my rescue.

*A small collection of these Juvenilia was published later in a Biographical
Notice in 1854, written by one of the masters in Lyons, on his most brilliant
pupil. M. Legeay was then Honorary Professor of the Faculty in Grenoble.
He had collected them as promise of a brilliant future for the young student.
Now there only remained for him to place them as a wreath on his grave. Will
not the cultivation of Latin as a solid foundation for a French author appear
an anachronism to the present generation ?

io FREDERICK OZANAM

He dispelled the clouds and illumined the darkness of my thoughts.
From then I believed with faith grounded on the rock. Touched by
such a grace I promised God to consecrate my days to the service of
truth. That restored peace to my soul."

A private letter written in January, 1830, to his college friend,
Materne, at the close of this crisis, exposes in more detail the interior
struggle, at the memory of which he still shuddered : " My dear
friend," he writes, " I must enter with some detail into a painful period
in my life, which began in Rhetoric class and ended last year. After
constantly listening to unbelievers and to expressions of unbelief, I
commenced to ask myself why I believed. I began to entertain
doubt, and yet I wished to believe. I rejected the promptings of doubt.
I read books in which belief was established ; yet none fully satisfied
me. For a month or two I believed this or that piece of reasoning :
some new difficulty presented itself and I doubted again. Oh ! how
I suffered ! for I wished to be religious. My faith was not solidly
grounded, yet I preferred Faith without Reason to Doubt. All that
tortured me. I took to philosophy. The Theory of Certitude quite
upset me. I thought for a moment that I should doubt my very
existence."

We have here the picture of the entire man, spirit, heart, and will
engaged in that struggle. The spirit is tried with doubt, the heart
protests, the will resists. That is the greatest of human sufferings ;
it is also the great testing- time sent us by God, which brings with it
the dazzling vision of love. Ozanam referred to that struggle in a later
letter in the following forcible terms :" Shaken by doubt, I grasped the
columns of the temple with all my might, even were it to crush me in
its fall."

But God had seen his tears and came to the assistance of His child.
The spirit grew clear ; faith, beloved and desired, triumphed ; tempta
tion (for the crisis was that and nothing else) was beaten back. The
martyr, in his very hour of martyrdom, was loyal to God. God would
not forget him.

Ozanam turned to God. A friend relates that " In the darkest hour
of trial, which had become for him actual physical pain, the young
student appealed to the mercy of God for light and peace. He threw
himself on his knees before the Most Blessed Sacrament, and there in
tears and in all humility, he promised Our Lord that, if He would
deign to make the lamp of truth shine in his sight, he would consecrate

THE ABB£ NOIROT ii

his life to its defence." He arose consoled. Like Paul on the road
to Damascus, he was to find the Ananias who would enlighten and
prepare the disciple.

" The priest- philosopher, whose teaching rescued him," as he him
self expressed it, was the celebrated Abbe Noirot, who for 20 years
professed philosophy in the College of Lyons. He left an indelible
mark on all the brilliant young men of the period. His method —
which cannot be judged by his written work, for he wrote nothing —
was founded on Descartes rather than Socrates. He exaggerated
doubt in order to pave the way in the mind for the return of
true thinking. Whatever his method may have been, its results were
splendid. Christianity, which was the apex of his system, shone in
that school of thought with a dazzling radiance of truth and beauty.
" The influence which that true master exercised over young
Ozanam," wrote J. J. Ampere, " decided altogether the direction of
his thoughts." The master admired and esteemed the young man,
the youngest of his 130 students in the course of philosophy. At the
close of his life he spoke of him in the following terms : "He was a
chosen soul. Nature had dowered him, in a wonderful degree, with
graces of mind and heart. Affectionate, sympathetic, ardent, devoted,
modest, at once lively and serious, hating no one, despising falsehood,
never was there a more popular student among his fellows. In the
words of one of them, they formed in his regard a circle of love and
respect." His also describes him as studying with enthusiasm far
into the night. Thus, young as he was, he won his way to the head of
his class, which he retained to the end.

Monsieur Cousin did not hesitate to name Abbe Noirot " the first
Professor of Philosophy in France," saying, " other Professors have
students : the Abbe Noirot creates disciples." Ozanam was his chosen
disciple. Outside lecture hours the master liked to have him for a
companion in his walks through the lonely and rocky paths which
surround — or which then surrounded — Lyons on all sides, and " which
make the city so dear to minds of a melancholy and contemplative
turn." It was usually on the South side of the city, in the Straits
at La Quarantaine that they walked, and thrashed out such questions
as the reconciliation of Science and Faith, over which the Abbe Noirot
raised the illuminating torch of Revelation. There, too, are to be
perceived the first faint outlines of those large historical scenes of
Christianity, of which his mind now at peace was already conceiving

I2 FREDERICK OZANAM

the first splendid ideas. His convictions had been shaken by a little
cheap philosophy of earth ; they were now restored in the true science
of Heaven. He expressed himself later as follows to two of his friends :
" For some time past I have felt the need of some solid ground, wherein
I could take root and resist the torrent of doubt. This day, my
friends, my soul is rilled with joy and consolation. At one with faith,
my reason has found again that Catholicism, which was taught me
by the lips of an excellent mother, and which was so dear to me in my
youth, Catholicism in all its grandeur, in all its beauty."

His faith emerged stronger and happier from the struggle ; it be
came, also, more sympathetic with the failings of others. " How often,"
relates his elder brother, "has not our dear brother confided
to us the terrible anguish which tortured him at that time. Ah ! he
would add, " I am sometimes charged with excessive gentleness towards
unbelievers. When one has passed, as I have, through the crucible
of doubt, it would, indeed, be cruelty and ingratitude to be harsh to
those to whom God has not yet vouchsafed to give the priceless gift
of faith.' " Thus had God moulded and prepared him to be, one day
an enlightened and authoritative guide for the young men of his time.
The crisis had been for him, at once a lesson, a trial and an apprentice
ship.

Such was his infancy, and such his early youth. At the age <
sixteen Frederick Ozanam left College first of first. Now the bloom
of that early youth is about to open, that period of his life so holy, so
industrious, so fruitful of good works, so unlike the youth of others
that one can say " Ozanam had no youth."

At the age of sixteen this youth was already a man. It is the first
fruits of a man's mind that we shall see in a defence of Christianity
extraordinary for his years. All is hurried in this rare life, as if Heaven,
which was to make it brief, was eager, even then, to make it full.

CHAPTER II.

LITERARY ATTEMPTS.

A LAWYER'S CLERK.— PROFESSION OF HIS BELIEF. — The Bee. — SAINT
SIMONISM IN LYONS — Reflexions sur la doctrine de Saint Simon —
Programme of the Demonstration du Christianisme.

1830-31.

Dr. Ozanam had settled views about the future of his son. In his
family diary in 1829, the following lines are to be found : " I desire to
make Frederick a Barrister, or preferably, a member of the Magistracy
or a Judge in the Royal Court of Justice. He has refined, pure and
noble sentiments : he will make an upright and enlightened judge. I
venture to hope that he will be our consolation in our old age. After
college, where he is at this moment finishing his philosophy, he will
study the practice of the law with a lawyer ; thence he will go to read
law at Paris or Dijon."

This preconceived notion of a legal profession for his son, instead
of a literary life which attracted Ozanam, was to be the source of eight
years' suffering, which weighed heavily on the young man.

The filial son gave way to the desire of his father. The next year,.
1830, the young bachelor is to be found as an apprentice in the cham
bers of one of the principal attorneys of Lyons, a M. Coulet, transcribing
briefs, noting or engrossing deeds. But neither his heart nor his mind
was in his work. Since finishing his philosophy, his thoughts were
engrossed by a sublime ideal.

The Doctor well understood that it was necessary to find some
occupation to fill up the tireless intellectual energy of his son. He
engaged for him at the same time a German teacher, with whom the
young man made rapid strides in that language. It was a valuable
instrument which a far-seeing Providence placed in the hands of the
future Professor of Foreign Literature as well as Historian of the
Civilisation of the Germans and the Franks. Lessons in drawing were
added. That was his mother's wish who, herself, handled the brush

14 FREDERICK OZANAM

with refinement. It would also be a pleasant interlude in the thankless
task of petty clerking. As a matter of fact, it was the first infusion
of that aesthetic culture, which was to show itself later in discriminat
ing critiques on art and on the Christian artists of the Middle Ages.

The environment was good for neither study nor art. The ly-year-
old Christian was to have the unpleasant task of making his faith and
its practice respected by others.

The chambers of M. Coulet had on its staff some young blackguards,
who indulged in indecent literature and who frequented immoral
haunts. These did not hesitate to brag of their carouses before the
new comer. Ozanam blushed at first ; then, losing patience and filled
with indignation, he boldly broke in upon their conversation, scorned
their ill-timed jests, exposed their ignorance, made them ashamed of
their subjects of conversation and silenced them ; he, the youngest
of the lot ! " Frederick," his brother recalls, " related to us with
animation the details of that first skirmish and victory. It won for
him the respect and esteem of the sorry youths who, but the previous
day, thought him a noodle and a child."

He had a similar experience at his drawing course. M. Leonce
Curnier, the author of an excellent work on Ozanam s Youth, gives the
following account, which I abridge : " It was at the end of 1830. We
were at drawing class, sitting beside one another, surrounded by dis
solute young men. It pained us to have to listen to them ; but,
overwhelmed by numbers, we maintained silence looking from one to
another. One day, however, matters came to such a pass that
we both cried out in protest. Ozanam stood up. I seem now to see
that countenance and hear that voice, of which I had hitherto only
known the modesty and gentleness. He grew animated, became in
dignant, commanded and imposed silence. In a firm but restrained
tone he proclaimed his Catholic Faith, without, at the same time,
littering one word that could hurt the feelings of those misguided
young men. These were silenced." .... " In re-seating himself,"
adds the witness of this scene, " the future Professor of the Sorbonne
grasped the hand of the simple industrial apprentice. That hand,
my young and noble friend never withdrew."

Their friendship lasted for life. In his recollections of Ozanam s
Youth, dedicated to his sons, Leonce Curnier wrote : " My daily con
tact with Frederick Ozanam constituted the whole charm of my stay
in Lyons. We often had delightful walks together on the charming

MORAL INFLUENCE 15

banks of the Saone, the beauty of which threw him into poetical
ecstasy. A picturesque site, a landscape with an infinite horizon, a
river with a graceful sinuous course would ever entrance him. The
fields and the woods, the verdure and the flowers held for him ineffable
delight, which evoked expressions of thanks and homage to the Creator.
More than once, during our trips in the suburbs of Lyons, I have heard
such expressions burst forth from the deeply religious heart of my
friend. On each occasion, as if hanging on his lips, I felt drawn upward
by him on those mystic flights, and my soul endeavoured to soar with
his."

The same friend continues : " With us both the isle of Barb e, that
enchanting oasis of verdure, so dear to the inhabitants of Lyons, was
a favourite spot. Ozanam would point out to me with veneration
the remains of an old Abbey of the yth century, or he would make
me climb with him the steep rocks, from the summit of which, it is
said, Charlemagne beheld his army file past, in that heroic age of
Faith which was to live again in the writings of my young companion."

" Notre Dame de Fourviere held for him a charm other than the
splendid panorama which' unfolded itself from the mountain. It
was for him a place of prayer. He had a great devotion to the Mother
of God, whose modest shrine bore on its walls many evidences of
miracles obtained through her intercession. Ozanam, who knew the
history of this holy place intimately, called up before my eyes the
notable visitors of former times : Thomas a Beckett, Innocent IV.,
Louis XI, Anne of Austria, Louis XIII, and, in our days, Pius VII,
on his return from the coronation of Napoleon."

" The whole soul, mind and heart, benefitted by such conversations,"
continues the friend from Nimes. " When God in His infinite mercy,
gave me Ozanam for a friend, I was young, left to myself, far from home,
in a great city where many dangers surrounded me. At the first breath
of that general scepticism which was characteristic of the time, I felt
the faith which I had had at the knees of my mother totter, and the
only force which I could oppose to the seduction of the passions weaken.
Ozanam crossed my path to arrest me at the edge of the precipice.
I afterwards walked with a firm and steady step in the path traced
out for me by his example. ... It was the destiny of Frederick
Ozanam to preserve, or to win back from the demon of unbelief many
young men of his own time. I am perhaps the first who was thus
saved from ruin."

16 FREDERICK OZANAM

When his professional course was finished, M. Leonce Curnier re
turned to Nimes, his native city, of which he became one of the most
distinguished citizens. He lived in the charm of those memories,
and under the benign influence of that example, as we shall see from
their later correspondence.

We have already shared Frederick's confidence with one of his college
friends, M. Materne, afterwards Professor in the University, and re
nowned for his scholarly work on Grecian Literature. Now, in June
1830, Ozanam entertains his friend with admiration for the religion
which he has regained, and with the great happiness which he ex
periences in belief. But in this the young Christian has some fault
to find with himself, in that he is not as Christian as he ought to be
and as he would wish to be. " I bring more conviction than fervour
to the practice of my religion, and this causes me much suffering. I
wish to be a worthy son of the Church. I do indeed perform most
regularly my religious exercises, but Confession is for me a sore
trial. This springs from my pride, from the embarrassment which I
experience ; . . and, above all, from the laziness which prevents me
from correcting myself."

It was on the 8th June, 1830 that he wrote this. The Revolution
broke out a few days later. The correspondence was resumed on this
new topic. Ozanam was indignant at the impious acts committed
during those violent days. "A dissolute Press, trampling on the Cross,
Government acts of retaliation widening the breach between the new
regime and the Catholic Church." Yet, it is through the Church alone
that he expected a lasting peace for Society to return ! About politics
he is silent, until the tree of liberty be known by its fruits. This very
young man knows how to bide his time : " While the young acclaim
the glorious Revolution, I endeavour to make myself old ; I watch
and wait, and at the end of 10 years I shall say what I think Mean
time, my dear friend, let us join in being good Christians. I am de
lighted to think that in this tempestuous crossing, we shall be a source
of strength to one another, to this end, that we shall neither fail nor
fall. Such a friendship must draw down the blessing of God. The
day will come when, near the end of our careers, we shall exchange
mutual congratulations on having entered on it hand in hand/'

There was much talk of war in those days of European unrest. " I
am told," wrote Ozanam on the I4th August, "that one of these fine
mornings I may find myself, like my father, on another bridge of

PRESS ARTICLES 17

Arcole or Lodi, or on the road to Vienna, or even to London, with my
knapsack on my back and my sword in my hand ! Well be it so !
Come what will, I shall none the less pursue my studies. Is it not
good for a soldier to be able to speak German and Italian ? Above all,
ought not a military man be armed with faith grounded on the rock,
by a thorough religious instruction ?"

Ozanam could have cited the example of another soldier, of whom
he wrote five months before his death, : " When he left the HussarS,
my father had read the voluminous Bible of Don Calmet from end to
end, and he knew Latin as even we Professors no longer do."

Even while studying hard, Frederick learned to write for the public.
Peres Noirot and Legeay, his masters, had founded in Lyons a little
Review, The Bee, open to past students of the College. Ozanam con
tributed some brilliant articles. In addition to actual events and to
trivialities in prose and verse, he treated of philosophy and history.
He shared these subjects with another past student of the same school,
Hippolyte Fortoul of Digne, a future Professor of the Faculty in
Toulouse and a future Minister of Education and of Public Worship
at the commencement of the Second Empire.

At this moment "Saint Simonism" invaded Lyons. Triumphant
in Paris, accredited by the genius of some of its masters as well as of
its students, backed by a leading paper like The Globe, popularised
in Lyons by the Precurseur and the Organisateur , presented to the mob
as the sublime revelation of future religion, the doctrine of Saint
Simonism expected and awaited its final enthronement by the July
Revolution. In Lyons, however, the person and the preachings of
the Parisian emissaries, the strangeness of their bizarre costume, the
extravagance of their promises of reform, had awakened in the people
curiosity rather than sympathy. On the other hand, the prestige
of their liberal theories of equality, the attraction of their promises
of moral emancipation, the dawn of a golden age, which was to witness
the return to the primitive Laws of Humanity, were not without
exercising a most seductive influence, especially upon the mind of
the educated youth. In addition to which, were there not even, —
startling to relate, — truly religious minds for whom Saint Simonism
represented a new and a better Christianity ? Which title it indeed
assumed.

It is truly astonishing to learn that a young man, then 17 or 18
years old, should have the hardihood to spring forward to attack this

i8 FREDERICK OZANAM

infatuation and seduction. His zeal for truth, his indignation at
falsehood and evil, the sight of the danger to his brothers, the honour
of God and of His Church, impelled him to write. His first effort
consisted of two articles in the Precurseur refuting the doctrine.

The young writer offered as an excuse for his temerity, the sincerity
of his convictions. He claimed the indulgence of his elders, whose
place was, however, more properly, in the forefront of the attack :

" Deeply imbued with the great truths of Christianity, which contain
for me consolation and hope, I find myself forced to express what my
soul feels. I know that my voice is feeble and that my spirit is weak.
It is not from a young man of 18 years of age that a masterpiece is to
be expected. If, then, I have failed in parts, if I have made slips,
let them be imputed, not to the cause I plead, but to my youth and to
my inexperience. If, on the other hand, I seem to have in any way
worthily upheld the cause in this first skirmish, deduce from that
what the elders could accomplish for that same principle, on behalf
of which their children fear not to enter the lists."

The Precurseur, which inserted the articles, promised to answer them,
and did nothing. The Globe, which had joined in the discussion, was
likewise silent. But the articles had attracted much attention in Paris
as well as in Lyons. Ozanam's friends pressed him to publish them,
developed and completed, in pamphlet form. That meant a second and
much enlarged work, the fruit of more study, so that the subject matter
travelled beyond the title. It was a complete examination, which
ran to several chapters, of the doctrine of Saint Simonism in its two
aspects, historical and critical, organic and dogmatic. I quote the
conclusion, which is clear and decisive, from a singularly virile mind : —

" The doctrine of Saint Simonism was represented to us as founded
upon the principle of human perfection, as resting upon an actual
historical system established in harmony with the needs of humanity.
It was announced as true in dogma, remote and holy in its origin,
fruitful and beneficent in its effects. But history proved it false,
conscience condemns it, common sense rejects it. Its primitive revela
tion is a fable, its novelty an illusion, its application immoral. Self-
contradictory, it would be disastrous as well as impossible in its final
development, it would impede human nature on its journey to perfec
tion and civilisation."

This appeared as a work of 100 pages in the spring of 1831, under
the title of Reflections on the Doctrine of St. Simon. It was at once

LAMARTINE AND CHATEAUBRIAND 19

acclaimed, at least as a promise of still better work. " I have re
ceived," he wrote, " a very flattering letter from M. de Lamartine,
and a very favourable review from the Avenir" (Lamennais' paper).
Lamartine wrote as follows : "Magon, August 1831. — I have just
received and read with pleasure your work, which you have done me
the honour to send me. When I consider your age, I am astonished
and filled with admiration for your genius. Please accept my best
thanks. I am proud to think, that a thought of mine, merely expressed,
should have inspired you to write such a beautiful critique. Believe
rather that the thought was not mine but yours ; mine has been but
the spark which fired your soul."

" Your first effort guarantees one more combatant in the crusade of
moral and religious philosophy against gross and material reaction.
I, too, look forward to victory. We shall, perhaps, not see it, but the
voice of conscience, that infallible prophet in the heart of a just man,
promises it definitely for our children. Let us believe in that promise
and let us live in the future."

M. de Chateaubriand takes a higher ground with the doctrines of
Saint Simon, which he disdains, and with Saint Simon himself, whom
he despises. He writes on the 2nd August from Geneva to a friend :
" I have glanced over the little work of M. Ozanam. I had already
read something of it in the Precurseur. The work is excellently con
ceived and the closing passage is arresting. I am only sorry that the
author should have squandered his time and his talent in refuting
what was not worthy of his attention. We all know Saint Simon.
He is, to say the least, a madman. Surely an extraordinary Christ !
Please convey my best thanks to M. Ozanam."

It must not be assumed that that first work of his i8th year was
altogether free from the youthful exuberance for which he claimed
indulgence. The tree may burst forth early into leaf and flower ; but
the fruit needs time for maturity. Some of the phraseology is unduly
rhetorical. Yet the man of letters and the scholar peeps out here and
there. Jean Jacques Ampere notices that : "I find in that work
the germ of qualities which developed late in Ozanam : a keen, though
still immature, taste for knowledge, drawn from widely different
sources : enthusiasm, loftiness of thought, great moderation in dealing
with persons ; above all, settled convictions, and a sincere and courag
eous sense of duty, which drove this young David alone to combat,

20 FREDERICK OZANAM

armed with a sling and five polished stones taken from the bed of the
stream."

It is to young men, those young men to whom his works were to
be devoted to the end, that Ozanam dedicated these first fruits of
his pen. " Let them not refuse to hear the voice of a comrade, of a
brother : Young men, the moral regeneration of our ancient land of
France will be your own special work. You have felt the emptiness
of material pleasures, you have felt the hunger for truth crying out
within you ; you have gone for light and comfort to the barren philo
sophy of modern apostles. You have not found food for your souls
there. The religion of your forefathers appears before you to-day
with full hands ; do not turn away, for it is generous. It also, like
you, is young. It does not grow old with the world. Ever renewing
itself, it keeps pace with progress, and it alone can lead to perfection."

But are the first feelings of vain-glory noticeable in the splendid
reception which awaited the young author ? It is but the beginning
of temptation : he is conscious of it, and he rejects it. On the
iQth April, 1831, he confesses to his friend, Materne, who had over
whelmed him with praise, that he is persecuted by a violent desire
for publicity which tends to destroy his best efforts. "Yet, though
I know that this glory is empty, it does not prevent me from seeking
it ... My dear friend, speaking in terms of philosophy and religion,
the only rule by which to regulate our acts is the law of love : love of
God and of our neighbour . . . . Oh ! my dear friend, let this
command of love be our law. Trampling under foot all vain glory,
our hearts will be consumed with love for God, for men, and for true
happiness. Then we shall be excellent Catholics, excellent Frenchmen ;
we shall be happy."

The son of M. Ampere, who saw in that essay the germ of Ozanam's
talent, saw in it also the preface to his complete work of apologetics,
and wrote later : "Ozanam opposed to this anti-Christian doctrine
of modernity, the Gospel and antiquity, seeking with a hand, still
youthful, but already firm, to follow link by link the chain of human
tradition. It was the preface to the book at which he was to labour
even to his last day." Ozanam, himself, had some similar feeling
when writing to his dear relative, Ernest Falconnet : " The reason why
I like this little work is, that in it I have planted the seed of what is
to occupy my life."

We have here, then, a first effort of what was to be his life work :

A LIFE WORK 21

a work not only literary but holy and religious ; a work of faith and
of science, a work of apostleship, carried out with the single aim of
winning souls from the sceptic spirit of the time. That work was to
be as he conceived it La Demonstration de la Religion Catholique par
Vantiquite 'et I'universalitedes croissances et des traditions du genre humain.
That perspective exalts him, and he who, but yesterday had " grasped
the columns of the temple even were it to crush him in its fall," is
now able to write to the same friend as follows : — " To-day I find the
same columns grounded on science, crowned with wisdom, and glory,
and beauty. I find them again and embrace them with enthusiasm
and love. I dwell near them. I shall point them out as a beacon
of deliverance for those who are drifting on the sea of life."

Some of his fellow pupils in Lyons had preceded Ozanam to the
schools of Paris. One named Hippolyte Fortoul, has been already
mentioned. He was two years Frederick's senior. Happening to
come to live in the great city immediately after the July Revolution,
finding himself surrounded by a circle of young men, restless, turbulent,
thirsting for novelty, drunken with liberty, blinded by illusion, at
the mercy of every current of thought, and of every wave of political
passion, Fortoul laid before Ozanam the formidable question of the
present duty, and of the future of Society.

The reply was a long letter of ten pages, on the I5th January 1831,
surely the most astonishing letter that has ever been written by an
iS-year-old student. What one first remarks is the detachment of
mind and heart from the tumult of current politics, and then the calm
and serene contemplation, which was preparing him silently and ser
iously for a higher life. This life was to be devoted to the service of
eternal truth, to a great work at once moral, social, and religious,
in which he hoped for the co-operation of his friends.

"My dear comrades, at the moment of greatest moral and material
unrest, my decision is taken, my life's plan is mapped out, and as a
friend, I ought to acquaint you with it. In the first place, tired of
politics, wearied with systems of all kinds, watching the charade being
played all round me and patiently waiting until the key-word be uttered,
I have resolved to confine myself to my own sphere, to work out my
own development, apart and detached from society, to study seriously
in order that I may take my part in it later with more advantage to
it and to myself. Such is the plan which I have formed, and which
the Abbe Noirot has encouraged me to pursue. He assures me that I

22 FREDERICK OZANAM

shall easily find many studious young men ready and willing to co
operate. At once I thought of you, my good friends Let

us then be stirring, and while the storm is overthrowing many of those
in high places, let us develop in obscurity and in silence, to be full
men when the period of transition shall have passed and we shall be
needed."

His scheme was to rebuild society on a religious basis, which would
in turn be supported on a larger historical foundation. This religious
reconstruction would necessitate seeking and finding the earliest
conceptions of religious truth in the primitive traditions and sacred
writings of every people. The preliminary work would consist in the
study of Oriental languages, Hebrew, Sanscrit, Egyptian, " a round
dozen languages," as he said, so as to be able to consult at first hand
original documents. In addition it was to comprise a knowledge of
geology and astronomy in order to be able to discuss the cosmogony
of peoples, and to fathom the histories of races and beliefs.

What would it not be necessary to know ? One smiles at finding
Ozanam " groping in tombs, exhuming myths, exploring the traditions
of every age from the savages of Cook to the Indians of Wishnow and
to the Scandanavians of Odin." That youth surely has no fears !

Ozanam offers some apology for the grandiose character of his voca
tion : " I am amazed at my own daring ; but what can one do ? When
an idea has taken possession of one for the last two years and grows and
grows until it occupies the whole mind, how can one set limits to
it ? When a voice cries and cries and ever cries : Do this, I wish it ;
how can silence be imposed on it ?"

Ozanam had then heard, even before the age of 18, voices from
Heaven, from God, calling him to his vocation. It was the work of
God and of God's Church, in which the apostle was urging his comrades
to co-operate. "Co-ordinating our efforts with those of others we
shall create a new organisation. . . Then one may see Catholicism
leading the age with every hope of a better future. My dear friends,
I feel moved in addressing you, for the work is grand. It is true it
is gigantic ; but I am young. I have every hope that the time will
come, when, having nourished, fortified, and developed my ideal,
I shall be able to express it worthily."

Six days later, on the 2ist January, in a second letter similarly
addressed, it is the urgent needs of the time and its solemn nature
that move him : " How great is the scene of action to which we are

TRUE GLORY 23

called ! How beautiful it is for a young man to enter on his career
in such a solemn hour ! So far am I from being discouraged by the
course of events, that I am glad to have been born at a time when,
by dint of some real hard work, it will be given to me perhaps to do
some good."

The last lines are these speaking of his esteemed master : " What
a great friend was the Abbe Noirot ! He has my profound gratitude
for ever ! For you, comrade in arms, my friendship is ever-enduring
and you shall never be forgotten." It was a regular enlistment.

His last letter from Lyons, dated 4th September 1831, addressed
to his cousin, Ernest Falconnet, breathes the same spirit. The young
builder proceeds to lay out the plan of his future edifice which is to
be a temple. One side will face the past : "What was the primitive
religion of humanity?" Another will face the future: "What will
be the religious future of this same humanity ? " He continues : " by
that time neither death nor old age shall have arrested our progress,
the figure of Christianity will emerge in all its splendour." He then
salutes Christ, the Eternal King of all time.

The glory of that work was to be for God alone. Here the wise and
saintly youth shows his true Christian humility. His friend Materne,
having spoken of other glory, he replied : " No, my dear friend. We
mast not make glory an end ; we are to receive it but as encourage
ment. True glory consists in recognition by posterity. But the
just man places his hopes still higher. He awaits his reward and his
glory from the hands of an infallible and incorruptible Judge, the Giver
of all good gifts, to Whom he appeals from the ingratitude of men."

We have just heard the future Sorbonne Professor express his hope
for a great work of science and faith, in which, indeed, Ozanam was
to be first, a worker, and subsequently, the master. A short time after
wards the future founder of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul was
not less explicit as to the work of charity, which was to precede the
former and to surpass it.

The two works were to have difficult beginnings. No doubt, his
encyclopaedic scheme of study was somewhat far-fetched. The idea
itself, the main idea that dwarfed all others, was to meet discourage
ment in his own immediate domestic circle. "We were frightened,"
relates his brother, " at the dangers of the profound and difficult
subject matter of the study which he was commencing. The thesis
of progress through Christianity, did this not seem to challenge the

24 FREDERICK OZANAM

immutability of our dogma ? We therefore spoke often to him in
our evening walks. He answered us with the approbation and the en
couragement of the Abbe Noirot, without whose imprimatur he published
nothing." The brother adds these lines, which should be noted :
" Frederick never printed any important work concerning religion,
without first submitting it to the severe criticism of a learned and
conscientious theologian. This docility to the Church was for him a
matter of scruple. He would have abandoned his dearest opinions
unhesitatingly, and torn to pieces his most eloquent writings, rather
than that they should contain any propostion, even dangerous or
suspect, not to say erroneous. He marched protected by the shield
of orthodoxy. That was his rule during his whole life."

His domestic circle was on good ground in arguing against the
hopeless immensity of his plan of study. "It appeared to us to be
too vast for the strength and life of one man. The spirit would exhaust
all its energy in endless research, before it could possibly bear fruit."

That was true. But, gaming wisdom and experience with time,
the ardent 1 8-year-old conscript, the Defender of Christianity, would
learn to circumscribe, where necessary, the illimitable field of studies
which his flaming eyes swept with a glance. Instead of the ancient
Orient and the cradle of the human race, it is the barbarism of North
ern Europe, won over and subdued by the Gospel, that would yield
to him the secret of the origin of Christian civilisation. "But if,"
as wrote J. J. Ampere, " the student was forced to limit the extent
of his study, the master idea ever remained the same, to demonstrate
and glorify religion from history. Thus, at 18 years of age, the student
of yesterday was already marching on the road to the great goal to
wards which the renowned Professor was, 20 years later, to take the
last steps. Thus he was able to write, at the head of his first lecture in
the Sorbonne : " Life is advancing, we must take advantage of the
little youth that remains. It is full time to commence writing and to
keep my 1 8-year-old promises to God."

Such were the lofty ideals that preoccupied Frederick Ozanam as
he followed the enforced avocation of a junior clerk in the chambers
of M. Coulet, and during those eternal interviews with the chief clerk,
from which he derived neither profit nor pleasure. Between times, his
brother's biography depicts a young man of modest appearance coming
and going from his father's house in the Rue Pisay, which was then
standing, walking abstractedly and apparently absorbed by one

HIS EARLY YOUTH 25

thought, which made him insensible to all around him. At times he
rapidly turned over the pages of a volume which he devoured, hastening
his step, brushing against people and things in his path ; then, with
touching confusion, humbly apologising and excusing himself on the
ground for his weak sight His sight was, as a matter of fact, very
short. For him, time was not silver, it was golden.

Such was the virile religious, intellectual and moral preparation
of his early youth, which heralded the worker, fit for his great work, as
it raised him well above the level of the youth of the world ; above their
frivolity and voluptuousness ; above the ephemeral dust and the filthy
mire. His conscience had been formed in purity and his heart in
piety and charity. He was thus prepared for those first combats
and those first conquests into which we shall follow him.

26 FREDERICK OZANAM

CHAPTER III.

ISOLATION. — AMPERE AS HOST. — CHATEAUBRIAND. — MONTALEMBERT.—
M. BAILLY— CONFERENCE OF HISTORY.— A HOLY SCIENTIST.— A

SAINTLY PRIEST.

1831-33.

Ozanam had entered on his nineteenth year when his father decided
that the time had come to send him to the Faculty of Law in Paris.
There was not, at that time, such a Faculty in Lyons. It was towards
the close of 1831 when the terror inspired by the July Revolution had
begun to die down. Frederick had given such solid proofs of principle
and virtue that every thing pointed to his safe return from that greatly
dreaded, but none the less necessary, trial.

Frederick obeyed cheerfully. Paris was for him the city of studies,
but especially of historical research. There he would find masters,
books and also comrades whom he would be able to associate in his
work.

The parting did not take place without pangs as he recalled after
wards. He was leaving for the first time that home whose sweet
ness and charm he had commemorated in some New Year verses which
now came back to his mind :

Adieu, vous qui fuyez d'une fuite infinie,
Premiers ans de bonheur, premiers ans de ma vie ;
Vous emporterez tout ; tout, jusqu 'a la douleur ;
Mais vous n'emporterez pas la memoire du coeur.*

* Farewell, you who are fled for ever,
My first years of happiness, my first of life ;
You sweep all in your train, even grief :
But you do not deaden the memory of the heart.

LONELINESS 27

He prayed to God for his parents, for success, and above all, for the
honour of the career upon which he was about to enter :

Donnez a leur enfant la force et la lumiere,
Donnez-lui de fournir une noble carriere,
Et d'y gagner ce prix que je puisse, a mon tour,
Leur offrir, pour payer un peu de tant d'amour.*

During the latter days of October or the early days of November,
1831, Ozanam was many leagues from Lyons, " buried and lost,"
as he sadly explains to his mother. When leaving he had forced
himself to appear cheerful, but since the 7th November his super
ficial gaiety had disappeared. At this time his lot was one of utter
loneliness. His was the bitterness of dear memories changed into
regrets. His also the fear of the unknown and of himself, flung without
guide into the capital of egoism, into the whirlpool of passion and of
human error. He is frightened, he suffers physical pain from very
terror, he has no one to love. That is the critical hour : to whom
could he confide his troubles ? " Who bothers about me ? My
young acquaintances are too far away from my lodgings to see them
often. To confide in I have but you, mother .... and God. But
those two are legion."

The Church of St. Genevieve close by opened its doors to him :
but it had been recently disestablished by Royal Decree : " It is now
the Pantheon, a pagan temple in a city of Christians. It is a tomb.
But what is a tomb without a crucifix, a burial without the hope of
future consolation ?" But as a set-off to that in St. fitienne du Mont,
his parish Church, he glories in the stateliness of the religious liturgy
in the magnificence of the chant, and of the organ. Even as he writes
he is in ecstasies : " I have never felt anything quite like it."

The success of a campaign is often decided in the first skirmish.
The young man became aware of the danger on the instant, and re
cognised immediately that he had fallen into an ambush.

Madame Ozanam had requested an old friend of the family to find a
quiet, reliable boarding-house for her son in Paris. The friend had
made a mistake in his choice, which the young lodger was not slow to
discover. The company there was not good. A letter to his mother

* Grant to their child strength and light,
Grant him to carve out an honourable career,
To win some prize that I, in my turn,
May offer them something for their great love.

28 FREDERICK OZANAM

dated 7th December contains the following disedifying account.
" At the table are old and young ladies, forward, noisy, frivolous,
vulgar, even gross. The young men are still worse ; loose conversa
tions about indecent representations and Parisian scandals. Barrack-
room talk repeated word for word." After supper giddy groups are
formed at the card-tables ; shouts and vacant laughter penetrate to
his room. " I have been pressed," he said, " to join in those amuse
ments ; you can readily understand how I refused. Yet these people
are neither Christians nor Turks. I am the only one who keeps the
fasts, which has made me the butt for many a gibe. It is very an
noying to me to find myself in such society." Every feeling in
Ozanam was wounded, his delicacy, his self-respect, his modesty, his
religious sentiment. He asked for advice and instructions.

Madame Ozanam could scarce have received that letter when
Providence, who is our Mother also, forestalling her, made the following
splendid response. On the I2th December Frederick gave his father
a description of a visit which he had paid to a very illustrious fellow-
townsman, M. Ampere. Some little time before, the young man had
been introduced to the great scientist at the house of M. Perisse, a
relative of M. Ampere. He had been invited to call on M. Ampere, when
he should come to Paris for his law course, and he did not forget to do so.
The reception was quite fatherly. He was naturally asked about Paris,
about his lodgings and his environment. At first with hesitancy, then,
won by cordiality, Frederick confided to him, not without some con
fusion, his present troubles ; Ampere listened in silence, moved by the
timidity and candour of the young man. Then, without a word, he
led him to the next room and opened the door. It was a very bright
room, looking out on the garden. " This is my son's room, who is,
and will be for some time, in Germany. What do you think of it ?"
Then he added quite simply, " Would it suit you ?" As Ozanam,
embarrassed and confused, did not seem to understand, he continued :
" Come and take possession of it. I offer you board and lodging here
on the same terms as you are paying at present. Your tastes and
sentiments are like my own, and I shall be very glad to have you to
talk to. You will make the acquaintance of my son, who has read
deeply in German literature, and you can avail yourself of his library.
You observe the fasts, so do we. My sister, daughter and son dine
with me. We shall form a pleasant company. What do you think
of it ?"

ANDRE MARIE AMPERE 29

The young man did not well know what answer to make, not yet
feeling certain that such an offer could be intended for him. He
expressed timidly his appreciation of the honour and the happiness
which had been conferred on him, adding prudently, that he would
refer the offer to his parents to whom he was writing.

In the following letter the whole arrangement is referred to
as completed. Frederick informed his father that for the previous
two days he had been the guest of the great Ampere, 19 Rue des
Fosses-St. Victor, between the Polytechnic and the Jardin du Roi.
He described his moving, gave a sketch of his room, as also an account
of the daily routine of the household, in which he had henceforward
his place as one of the family.

Andre Marie Ampere was at that time 56 years of age. The savant
had been a member of the Academy of Science since 1814, Professor
of Applied Mathematics at the Polytechnic, of Physics at the College
of France, etc., and became later Inspector General of the University.
He had already made the remarkable discoveries which induced Arago
to write : " In the future the laws of Ampere will be spoken of in the
same way as the laws of Kepler have been in the past." The Royal
Societies of London, Edinburgh, and Cambridge, the Academies of
Berlin, Stockholm, Brussels and Geneva, had inscribed his name on
their lists of honorary members. His was the greatest scientific name
of his country and of his time. " He knows by instinct and intuition,"
wrote Ozanam, " the discoveries which crown his name with such
glory came to him in a flash."

But what the young man liked and admired in him more than his
genius was his goodness. Domestic trials had softened his heart and
illumined his faith. He lived with his sister and his dear daughter,
Albine, who was a prey to sorrow. Jean- Jacques, his son, his hope
and his pride, was busily engaged in traversing the world in search
of knowledge. Frederick was to fill a vacant place in that saddened
home. " M. Ampere is constantly showing me marks of extreme
kindness," he wrote to his mother. " The rules of etiquette which you
taught me, are unfortunately rendered useless by his consideration.
There is no use whatever in my protesting, I must be served first, or
he gets angry. His conversation is, at times, humourous, but always
instructive. I have learned much since I came here."

Ampere made him free of all the sources of instruction at his disposal.
He obtained entrance for him into the Academy of Science, of which

30 FREDERICK OZANAM

he was one of the leaders, and into the Mazarin library, to which he
himself introduced and recommended Ozanam. " The kindness and
graciousness of that great man," wrote Ozanam, when recalling those
early days " were shown to all, but especially to young men. We
know many to whom he showed the kindness and solicitude of a father.
In truth, those who know only the intelligence of this man, know only
the poorer part. If he thought much, he loved still more."

But above Ampere's kindness, Ozanam thanked and adored the
Supreme God, of Whom he wrote piously : " God is infinitely kind in
sweetening my exile by granting me such society. He does all things
well. He saw how I should suffer from home-sickness. He saw that,
in my weakness, I stood in need of much consolation to sustain me to
the end. He has given it to me."

Consoled, but not cured, the young man vainly asks in his letter :
" What student's life can be happier than mine ? . . . . Yet I feel ill
at ease in an immense solitude. When separated from those I love,
I feel something of a child who must needs live at home with father
and mother, some indescribable feeling of delicacy which withers and
pines away in the atmosphere of the metropolis."

The " something of a child," the charming reflex of a soul which had
remained chaste and tender was, thanks be to God, to abide with
Ozanam for ever. At one time he writes to his father : " You wish
to know what I miss most. — You, father and mother and brothers
and sisters, that is what I miss and what I ardently desire to see.
How good it will be to meet you all again in eight months' time."
Again when writing to his mother he refers to the family fetes
in which alas ! he is not there to take part, the Feasts of St.
Nicholas, Xmas Eve, New Year's Day, Epiphany, the glad feasts of
the Church and of the home, in which the young Christian joins the
name of God : " Christmas is coming. We shall pray for one another,
mother. God will hear us both. He will give us strength and courage.
We shall see His Kingdom. Whatever the future may contain for us,
we shall walk with firm step to our eternal destiny."

By contrast, mighty Paris is for him a corpse, to which he is
chained. " Its cold congeals my blood, its corruption paralyses my
faculties. Paris is for me a modern Babylon, where, a captive, I weep
at the memory of Sion. Sion, my native city, holding those whom
I love, with its homely good nature and its abundant charity, Sion,
whose altars are erect and where faith is supreme."

HIS MOTHER'S INFLUENCE 31

The thought of mother was more than a cause of sweet regret for
him ; she was even from afar off, a shield and a buckler. In lines
written a few months before his death he wrote of her as follows :
" Our mother ruled by trust, by honour, and by a sense of duty. How
could I ever dare to read a forbidden page even though bound by
nothing but my word ? During my stay in Paris she never lost sight
of me, she knew everything that I was doing and I never even suspected
it. I looked upon myself as free and discovered that I was all the
more securely bound. It is thus that noble sentiments are inspired,
that wings are given to the soul, which learns to soar proudly after the
good, whereas if cribbed, cabined and confined by an irritating sur
veillance and by a degrading servility, it becomes only too anxious to
shake itself free of such shackles."

It was the thought of his mother, ever present to his mind, which
suggested his reply to M. Chateaubriand on the occasion of a memor
able visit. Pere Lacordaire relates the incident somewhat as follows :

What the great Ampere was in the world of Science, Chateaubriand
was in the world of letters. Ozanam desired to hear him, but had a
mild dread of meeting him. A letter of introduction from a Canon
of Lyons, the Abbe Bonnevie, gave him the necessary courage to knock
at the modest dwelling of him whom Charles X. at Prague called
41 one of the great powers of this world." It was New Year's Day,
1832, the hour, noon. M. de Chateaubriand had just returned from
Mass. He received the young student with every mark of kindness.
After some enquiries as to his plans, tastes, and studies, he asked him
if he intended frequenting theatres ? Pere Lacordaire relates that
Ozanam hesitated between the truth on one hand, and on the other
the fear of appearing childish in the eyes of his distinguished com
panion. He remained silent for an appreciable time. M. de Chateau
briand, waited with attention regarding him the while, as if attaching
great weight to his opinion. Truth triumphed. He admitted that
his mother had made him promise not to set foot in a theatre. There
upon the author of the Genie du Christianisme shook Ozanam warmly
by the hand, saying " I implore you to follow your mother's advice.
You will get nothing from the theatre, you may on the contrary lose
much there."

Pere Lacordaire adds that Chateaubriand's remark burnt itself
into Ozanam 's mind. When some comrades, less scrupulous than he,
pressed him to accompany them to the theatre, he declined firmly

32 FREDERICK OZANAM

with the words : " M. de Chateaubriand told me that it was not good
to go." He did go, for the first time, at the age of 27 years, in 1840,
to see Polyeucte. It made a poor impression on him. He felt, as
others have felt, whose taste is sure and whose imagination is lively,
that nothing can equal the representation of the great masters which
the mind can reproduce for itself in the silent and solitary study.

Even while hearing those solemn words of warning, Ozanam was
learning from the theatre of life, " which," he wrote, " is beginning
to show itself to me in all the enormity of its vices, in the tumult of
its passions, in the blasphemy of its impiety. We, children of good
parents, were living in trust and confidence, our souls ready to accept
every statement as honourable, every appearance as true. Here we
find ourselves condemned to the painful task of learning distrust and
suspicion."

He found a refuge in two things, " the pursuit of knowledge and
Catholicity, they are my only consolation, but they are indeed beauti
ful." We take the liberty of adding, friendship.

The year of Ozanam's arrival in Paris, 1831-2, witnessed a mighty
upheaval of all the elements of intellectual life, religious, political,
social and literary. Men did indeed believe that one of those turning
points in the history of the world had been reached, when the human
race leaves its beaten tracks to soar into new heavens and discover
new systems. Two systems of Philosophy were standing face to face ;
the Rationalistic School with ramifications into every branch of
human learning ; the Traditional School, so called because Reason
demands from Tradition the source of its deductions. In the ranks
of the latter were to be found Chateaubriand, Lamennais, Baron
d' Eckstein, de Bonald ; in Germany, Schlegel, Stolberg, Goerres,
etc. It is in the latter school that Ozanam sees the dawn of hope for
Catholic restoration, and as such he salutes it. " It is extraordinary
how well read everyone here is," candidly writes the young guest in the
Ampere household. He often met there M. Ballanche, another Lyons
man, with whose views he was not quite at one, but whose wisdom,
justice and Catholicity he admired. Thus in his courageous work,
Vision d' Hebal, written on the day after the sacrilegious looting of
St. Germain 1' Auxerrois, face to face with Saint Simonism prophesy
ing the approaching end of the ancient dogma, and indeed already
making preparations for its interment, Ballanche had not hesitated to
proclaim his Roman Catholic faith : " Everything is to be found in

BALLANCHE AND LAMENNAIS 33

Catholicity, and it has said the last word .... The Eternal City
knows that another Kingdom is promised and the Roman Pontiff will
declare the tradition of which it is the depository."

Ozanam attached himself to him as to a dear master. We read in a
letter of that period, " M. Ballanche received me very kindly. In the
course of our conversation he said " Religion embraces of necessity
theology, physiology, and cosmogony." Is not that exactly what we
said to one another one day ? Is it not another way of saying what
St. Paul said when he declared that all knowledge is contained in the
knowledge of Jesus crucified ?"

Lamennais was yet another intellectual giant, though his pre
eminence was much debated later. Ozanam saw little of him. His
letters mention him twice only, and then without comment. On the
7th December Ozanam wrote : " I saw M. de Lamennais on the eve
of his departure for Rome and had a long conversation with him."
On what subject ? He does not say. The celebrated journey to
Rome on the I3th December, 1831, was that from which Lamennais
returned in open revolt. Ozanam had not a pleasant recollection of
the only interview which he had with him, and he mentions his name
henceforward with regret.

The student had plunged into the strenuous work which he described
ten years later to his younger brother, Charles :

" You will be soon eighteen years of age — that is the age when I
had to forsake everything — for then we had everything — to come to
this city where I had not, as you now have, a brother, relatives and
friends ; for me there was then one room which was always lonely,
books, which brought memories thronging back with them, and faces
of strangers. Many a time the shaded light of my lamp, and the glowing
embers of the fire were my only companions from tea to bed. Then,
too, remembering those whom I had left, I was doubtful if I should again
see them on my return to Lyons."

The young law student entered on his studies conscientiously,
writing up his notes, as he informs us, immediately on his return from
lectures. He was equally particular in the students' debates,
frequently opening the argument, either affirmatively or negatively,
for the Government or for the opposition, in which his readiness of
speech first made itself known. The young law officer in debate
wrote home : " Although I have been complimented, I felt I was
very weak ; I did not know my brief sufficiently well."

34 FREDERICK OZANAM

A free course of lectures on Social and Political Economy, delivered
by M. de Coux, possessed great interest for Ozanam. M. de Coux was
one of the three young Professors who, in May, 1831, had opened
the Free School ; its brilliant success was still much spoken of. His
system broke with the philosophical and economical school of
Adam Smith, of J. B. Say, of Sismondi, etc., whom he justly charged
with being concerned only with wealth and the production of wealth,
to the neglect of man himself, oblivious of the fact that moral virtue
also possesses a value. He charged them with not having attempted
to touch the question of the redistribution of public wealth, for fear
of antagonising the Church and the Gospel. Ozanam wrote in March,
1832, of this Professor and of his course of lectures : " M. de Coux has
begun his series of lectures on Political Economy, which are both
interesting and informing. I beg of you to put your name down for
them. His lectures are crowded, because they contain truth and
living interest, a knowledge of the cancer that is eating into society and
of the remedy which alone can cure it."

He translated from German a little book of Bergmann's on the
religion of Thibet, another of Mone's on the mythology of the Lap
landers. He read Vice's Philosophy of History ; he resumed the study
of Hebrew with the deliberate intention of sounding the depths of
sacred history. As he said to his friends : " There never was a time
when a History of Religions was more called for by social needs.
That will be our special work ; it is maturing in our youthful mind ;
it will come in its own good time : Tempus erit."

The young men, whose co-operation the Abbe Noirot had assured him
would be forthcoming, were already beginning to appear. He was
scarcely a month in Paris when, on the 2Oth November, he was able
to write to a former comrade : " I hope to succeed in founding the
association of which I spoke to you. I have already some material
to start on."

Six weeks later he returns to the subject : " You well know how
desirous I was to have around me young men of the same sentiments
and opinions as my own. Now I know that they are to be found, that
they are numerous, but scattered, like so many needles in bundles of
straw. Difficult indeed is the task of him who would rally them
under one flag. However, I hope in my next letter to be able to give
you more definite details."

At length, on the loth February, 1832, he was able to announce

ASSOCIATIONS OF YOUNG CHRISTIANS 35

joyfully, "Our numbers are greater than we thought. I am finding
young men here of decided views and noble sentiments, who are
devoting their minds and their energies to the lofty mission which is
also ours."

Notable associations of young active Christians were to be found
in the Restoration period. We must not forget the Congregation
of the Blessed Virgin, which, founded in 1801, had grown up
under the Empire, until it became a power as helpful to the Church
as it was hateful to her enemies. Beside it, flourished in the Quartier
Latin La Societe des Bonnes Etudes, presided over by a great and a
good man, a Professor of Philosophy, M. Bailly de Surcy. He estab
lished it near the Law School, Estrapade Place, where he himself lived,
and received a few good young men as paying guests. There they
found books, papers, reading and meeting rooms, with the advantage
of the supervision and the advice of a wise father.

Those two associations had had a good moral and religious effect
on the young men in the schools. The July Revolution destroyed them
either by scattering or dividing their members. But listen to Ozanam :

" Nothing but the ruins of the Societe des Bonnes Etudes remained,
when a friend suggested to me to re-open its doors. The literary society
which then foregathered in the small rooms of M. Bailly 's paper The
Catholic Tribune, scarcely numbered 15 regular members. Moreover
the rather unscientific surroundings did not readily lend themselves
to serious investigation. Indeed such weighty questions as the fate
of the past and the future would be slow to gain a hearing in such a
timid gathering." Nevertheless it is of this cradle — or was it a grave ?
that Ozanam was able to say in the year 1833, " Thanks to the zeal
of some former members, this Society has developed in a most extra
ordinary way."

It had developed by transformation. The idea occurred to M. Bailly,
the man destined to bind together the youth of the past and the future,
to organise conferences of Literature, History, and Philosophy, to
Avhich Christian students would rally. He proposed to recruit the
latter, who were few in number, according as it would seem good to
him, from outside groups, whom, he did not wish to exclude altogether.

It is a propos of this conference that Ozanam wrote soon after :
"" Applications for membership are on the increase. We have got
some young recruits of superior ability, among whom are to be
found great travellers, Art critics, experts in Political Economy.

36 FREDERICK OZANAM

The majority read History, some Philosophy. We have even some
who are endowed with poetic genius, and who will one day be great
poets, if death or the storms of life do not interrupt their development.'*
We shall meet them again in the course of the great work.

The Salon of the young Count Charles de Montalembert was on
Sundays the rendezvous of a very select coterie. Frederick Ozanam
was introduced by Ballanche. The diversity of age and intellect to
be found there was very striking. Ozanam's letters tell us of savants
like Baron Eckstein, philosophers like Ballanche, poets like Alfred de
Vigny, the Polish Mickiewiez, and even Sainte-Beuve who, destined
to wander through many worlds, was then curiously exploring the
Catholic world ; intellectual opponents like Lherminier, dreamers
awakened by the misery of the people, like Considerant. Felix de
Merode had been there ; Victor Hugo was to come. " Last Sunday,"
wrote Ozanam, " I had a conversation with Lherminier. Then a very
interesting discussion sprang up between him and Montalembert.
We remained listening to them until midnight. Victor Considerant
was also of the circle ; there was much talk about the existing misery
of the people, and gloomy anticipations were formed for the future."
The dominating question which absorbed every one's attention was
the Social Problem. Montalembert, then in all his youthful brillancy,
" did the honours in his salon with extraordinary grace," which
Ozanam particularly noticed. " Montalembert," he wrote, " has the
figure of an angel and the conversation of a savant. He tells a story
well and has a fund of information. We discuss history, literature,
the interests of the poor, the progress of civilisation." The only
questions expressly excluded were points of doctrine (such as those
professed by L'Avenir "), on which Rome had commanded silence.
In this regard the greatest tact and prudence were observed.

" One breathes there a delicious atmosphere of Catholicity and of
fraternity. One is encouraged, one's heart is warmed, and one brings
back a sweet feeling of satisfaction, of a pure pleasure, a soul mistress
of herself, courage and resolution for the future. We return in
joyous groups of four and five. I hope to go there occasionally."

This page finishes with a rallying battle-cry : " The future is before
us. Comrades, let us prepare and be ready for it ; let us stand against
all enemies, let us face every trial. Let us remember that suffering
is a condition of progress and that friendship sweetens sorrows which
we cannot escape.

CIVIL WAR AND CHOLERA 37

In every letter addressed to those friends whom he left in Lyons,
Ozanam braces himself and others to an active Christian life.

The young man had even then a presentiment of the disasters which
were reserved for the end of his time. The following lines show
extraordinary foresight in this regard : " If courage is needed to live
now-a-days, it will be still more necessary in the immediate future.
The best informed minds all tell us that we have come to the beginning
of a series of disasters and universal upheavals. Governments and
peoples are standing face to face as enemies. In France the Repub
lican party is growing strong and no longer conceals its designs of
violence. A policy of extermination grounded on hatred is declared.
I believe that civil war is imminent, and all Europe, entangled in the
meshes of Freemasonry, will be its theatre."

The calamities of the year 1832 supervened and added to his sadness.
Civil War bathed his native city, Lyons, in blood . Riots broke out daily
in Paris where cholera also spread death and terror. At one period
1300 deaths a day were recorded. The scourge carried off nearly
every one on one side of the street Fosses-Saint-Victor, while the
opposite side, where M. Ampere lived, seemed immune. Ozanam
writes to his mother translating one of the Psalms at Complin : "A
thousand shall fall on thy side, and ten thousand on thy right hand.
But death shall not come nigh thee, because thou hast said, Thou
O Lord art my hope ; thou hast made the Most High thy refuge."
Though this letter, so full of faith and courage cannot be found we
have been informed that Madame Ozanam read it to his friends with
deep emotion.

His family pressed him to return, but the young man prayed to be
allowed to remain in Paris. He urged the necessity of his studies
and the nearness of his examination. The consolation of charity,
which he carried to the bedside of his sick friends, helped to bind him
to Paris. One of these latter, the Parish Priest of Notre Dame des
Champs, afterwards Abbe Duchesne, always spoke with pleasure of
the frequent and cheerful visits which he received in those dark days.
The Abbe's tastes were literary. When convalescing, he asked Ozanam
to get him some suitable reading. The next day he was brought the
account of the three great classical pestilences in literature, viz., that
of Athens by Thucydides, that described by Lucretuis, and that of
Milan in / Promessi Sposi of Manzoni ; the last, transformed into
a sublime spectacle of consolation by the Christian devotion and heroic

38 FREDERICK OZANAM

charity of Cardinal Borromeo. That is what he exactly desired to
demonstrate.

There is a species of artificial melancholy, which the young man of
action repudiates with energy. " Are you still weighed down with a
sweet sadness?" he asked Falconnett. "My dear friend, let there
not be over much day-dreaming and academic introspection. Let us
rescue our studies from the field of empty theorising and vain specula
tion, let us translate during life our beliefs into deeds." Two of his
Lyons companions, Fortoul and Huchard, had joined the long-haired
band of young France. Ozanam pities them : " Neither Chateau
briand, nor Lamartine are advanced enough for them. Nothing will
do them but Victor Hugo : Notre Dame de Paris, Plick et Plock, A tar
Gull, Marion Delorme. These, for them, embrace all literature."

He suffered from uncertainty of temper and indifferent health,
against which, however, his natural good humour asserted itself.
" I often scold myself and pout, but I always end by making peace with
myself although I be but a sorry lord. By increased effort I shall
merit success .... My dear friend, for you, gravity, for me, energy,
for both, the instruction of our fathers, the example of our mothers,
the kindness of Providence. Then, perhaps, it will be one day vouch
safed to us to leave behind us some little good, to be recognised as men
of good will in the ranks of the sages."

That steadiness of conviction and resolution, that courage, that
certainty, in the first steps of his career, which Ozanam has j ust attri
buted to the instruction and example of his parents were also largely
to be attributed in Paris, to the daily example of the holy layman
whose guest he was, and to the direction of a humble priest, whose
name we shall now mention.

The greater of the two, M. Andre-Marie Ampere, was not only a
second father to Ozanam, he was at all times a religious model. M.
Ampere, as the young man wrote to his mother, was completing at
this time his great synthetic work, the Classification des Sciences or the
Philosophic des Sciences. Having recognised the beautiful gifts of
mind which Providence had given the young man, he called him to
the honour of helping in the work under his dictation. The pages
still bear witness to that fact, written partly by one and partly by the
other. Their daily discourse on the Laws of the Universe evoked
from the soul of the savant spontaneous outbursts of admiration and
adoration of Him Who made those laws. Ozanam describes moments

THE ABBfi MARDUEL 39

of enthusiasm when Ampere, putting his head, filled with knowledge
and crowned with honour, between his hands, cried out in transport :
" Ozanam, how great God is, how mighty He is I" Ampere adored
the God of the universe in His temple. Ozanam relates that one day,
when anxious and downcast, he entered the Church of St. fitienne-du-
Mont to unbosom himself. The Church was empty and silent. A few
women were kneeling at the Shrine of St. Genevieve. Alone in a
corner, the figure of a man appeared motionless, absorbed in prayer.
Ozanam saw him, drew near, and recognised Ampere, humbled in the
Divine Presence. Having observed him for a few moments he went
away much edified, and more than ever devoted to the service of God !

It was a great matter for M. Ampere that Ozanam desired to remain
in Paris during the cholera scourge, to replace the old man's absent
son. We have shown that on the opposite side of the same street
neighbours were struck down and died in a few short moments. Fear
ing a like fate, M. Ampere, whose room was directly over the young
student's, did not fail to say each night on retiring : 'Ozanam, if the
cholera grips me to-night, I shall knock with rny stick on the floor.
Do not come upstairs, but run first for my confessor the Abbe X. . .
rue de Sevres, and then send for my doctor."

Ozanam recalled with gratitude such beautiful instances of Christian
ity when standing by the grave of his second father : " The venerable
head, that judged everything, including science itself, in the light of
divine things, bent down unreservedly before the divine mysteries,
and humbled itself before sacred teaching. He knelt at the same altar
as Descartes and Pascal, by the side of the poor widow and the little

child, less humble than he If he leaves a great void

among the intellectual elite, what sorrow does he not also leave in
the hearts of those, who had the privilege of knowing him intimately
and of enjoying the benefits of his example and of his virtues !"

The other name that must be mentioned in the first rank of the
guides of Ozanam 's youth during the five years of his student life in
Paris is not widely known. I have not hitherto named the director
and true spiritual father of that soul. Abbe Marduel had first been
Vicar of St. Nizier, in Lyons, and was later called to Paris to his uncle,
the Parish Priest of St. Roch. He was now advanced in years, living
quietly in retirement in rooms in the Rue Massillon, near Notre-Dame.
Here penitents of every class had found him out, bishops, priests,
peers of France, lords, doctors, students, workmen, poor people;

40 FREDERICK OZANAM

for all were received with the same welcome, treated with the
same kindness. Everyone was at ease with him. He was simple,
wise, well-informed, prudent and pious ; praying always and
telling his beads when failing sight prevented him from reading his
office. He had become very poor, had parted with everything, and
only possessed the poor pittance that St. Roch parish allowed him,
and which he shared with those poorer than he, the while his old
servant ransacked the city to procure the necessaries of life for him.

His sanctity, his continual union with God, had gained for him
supernatural power in the direction of souls, — which he seemed to
be able to see and read. He dispelled clouds and illusions, bringing
in their place light and peace and joy. He was indeed the priest
needed by Ozanam, whose sensitive conscience was often subjected
to interior trials revealed to us in his letters.

It was to Pere Marduel that Frederick had been recommended, on
his departure from Lyons, by his parents and by the Abbe Ozanam, who
had himself been a short time before under the same direction : "One
need not be astonished," the latter states, " at the progress made by
the young student in this school of gentle piety. His well deserved
confidence in, and deference to the counsels of this wise intellect, the
divine enlightenment which he received, the sacred fire which was
there enkindled, enabled him, with the grace of God, to triumph
in the interior spiritual struggle for truth and virtue. Under his
direction, this well-beloved brother, notwithstanding his many occu
pations, found plenty of time each day for meditation and prayer."
He could not do without the all-powerful aid, which this priest brought
him in the frequent use of the Sacraments. In May 1833, Pere Marduel
was absent for a month in Lyons. Frederick complained to his mother
of the length of that absence, which left his moral state troubled and
perplexed. "He is the only intimate spiritual adviser that I have,
the only one who, in kindness and wisdom, can take the place of father
and mother. He is due to return this evening and I hope to see him
to-morrow. As I am shy at making new acquaintances, I have been
left all this time to the caprices of my own fancy and imagination."

Then comes the conclusion which is a tribute to the efficacy of
Confession : " In very truth, if there be young Protestants of good
will, enlightened and religious, I pity them, because they lack a source
of grace, of which my own youth stands so sorely in need, and without
which I should be altogether desolate or morbid."

CHAPTER IV.
ASSOCIATION FOR THE PROPAGATION OF TRUTH.

PROTESTS AT THE SORBONNE. — PETITION TO THE ARCHBISHOP, INTER
VIEWS. — CONFERENCES IN NOTRE DAME. — SUBSCRIPTION TO THE
CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY OF LOUVAIN.

1832-34.

We are still in the year 1832, Ozanam's first year in Paris. The
groups of Catholic young men, which have been noticed around certain
centres, such as M. Bailly's flat, or the literary and political salon of
M. de Montalembert, or the conferences in the Law School, commence
at this point to single out from among their own ranks, one distingusihed
by a great charm of heart, even more than by ability or oratory. It
is found, without either himself or anyone else adverting to it or
desiring it, that he is the comrade who is listened to, the model who
is imitated, the guide who is followed.

Ozanam was neither remarkable for personal beauty nor for winning
manners. It was his natural charm and simplicity which first
awakened sympathy. Subsequently, the lofty quality of his mind
and heart bound others to him for ever. He invariably presented -
the dreamy appearance that comes from frequent meditation. But
it was not at all moodiness ; his disposition was sweet ; he delighted
in cheerful company and he was more than once heard to say that
" his worst company was himself." Truly humble, he never pushed
himself forward. He had but to unconsciously appear himself as he
really was, to inspire good men with a desire to know him, and with a
longing to approach him. It was in that way that his first friends in
Paris were attracted.

The membership of the group was naturally formed of young
students from Lyons, whom civic patriotism and similar religious
sentiments brought together. Ozanam often mentions Henri Pesson-
neaux, his affectionate cousin who, not being able to do without him,

42 FREDERICK OZANAM

crossed Paris on foot each evening from the Rue de Courcelles to the
Montagne St. Genevieve, to satisfy himself that Frederick was well.
He then discreetly took his departure without delay, so as not to
interrupt this student. The painter Janmot was also from Lyons,
a friend of Ozanam from childhood, and his companion at first Holy
Communion. He had forgotten nothing of this. A distinguished
pupil of M. Ingres, a charming character, a man of cultivated manner,
he was an artist who was also a Christian, and was enamoured of the
Divine Beauty which he adored. M. Velay was also from Lyons,
and was then at the Polytechnic. Ozanam witnessed with regret
his departure to take up his residence in the School of Engineering
in Metz, where he wrote him : " We shall not hear again your military
step on the staircase of the Hotel des £coles, nor the rattle of your
splendid sword on the floor of my room ! But you are missed, you
are spoken of, you are remembered, and when a letter from you arrives,
it is passed round the circle." Dufieux was also from Lyons, a great
and a brave heart, who, sorely tried in later years by cruel experiences,
knew no better nor more sympathetic friend than him who wrote :
" I love you in Him Who loves us both. Offer to Him on my behalf
some of those holy things which make you so dear to Him and to me."

I should have mentioned earlier, Edmond Le Jouteux ; Chaurand too,
who will be found with Ozanam at the foundation of the conferences
of St. Vincent De Paul in Lyons ; Paul Brae de la Perriere ! Frederick
is astonished, nay, vexed with himself, that he had not known him,
a Lyons man, in Lyons before his student days in Paris : " But God,
who draws the clouds together to scatter the lightning, also draws
souls together, when He is pleased, to radiate love."

One day, when he was present at the course of Oriental Archaeology
at the College of France, Professor Letronne, Geographer, Egyptologist,
Chronologist, the highest scientific authority of the time in that branch
of science, was at some pains to demolish what he contemptuously
called "the legend of Genesis." Ozanam, silent but restless, shook his
head significantly in dissent. He was noticed by another student
who was also of his way of thinking. After the lecture, he looked
for him to compare notes. Ozanam had gone, but not for good. They
found one another again.

Lallier — for it was he — gave the following account to a friend, who
has given us the account word for word, of their coming together :
"As I left the Law School, generally alone, I noticed that a small

GROUPING OF FRIENDS 43

group of students, always composed of the same members, were stand
ing on the footpath near the Rue Soufflot. In the middle of the group
was one who spoke warmly, and who was listened to. Who is, I asked
myself, this young chanticleer (sic) to whom those fellows pay so much
attention? — I recognised Ozanam. Moved by curiosity, as well as by
sympathy, I drew near the group and j oined in the conversation . Ozanam
replied to my remarks. When the others had dispersed, after a little
while, we two resumed the conversation, exchanging views, getting
to understand one another better. Thus occupied, we accompanied
each other home from lodgings to lodgings interminably." In Lallier,
Ozanam found a brother-in-arms.

On another occasion it was on the steps of the Law School that
Ozanam was noticed by a comrade. The latter wonders, who is this
silent, observant young man, quite up-to-date in appearance and
manners. On leaving the Church of St. fitienne-du-Mont, he happened
to find himself face to face with him, and, recognising him, stretches
out his hand : " What ! you are then a Catholic ? Please excuse me,
as I thought you were anything but that. Let us become friends."
This young man was M. de Goy. Determined above all things
to avoid evil companions, he had spent six months in Paris without
a friend.

Other affinities constituted the bond of friendship : birth, education,
profession, and, above all, conviction. The father of a second year's
law student, Paul Lamache, from St. Pierre-Eglise in La Manche,
was a doctor, his brother a priest just like Ozanam's, he had two sisters,
wholly given up to God and the poor, even as Ozanam's young sister
had been. He had played the same part at th^ College of Rouen,
that Frederick had played at that of Lyons, a defender and apostle
of faith. He had found a friend and a guide in his Master, Pere
Faucon, just as Ozanam had found in his Professor, Pere Noirot.
" Moreover," says his biographer, " both the sturdy Norman and the
frail and delicate Lyons youth had dreams in common, which are to
be found in their correspondence ; so many marks of intellectual and
moral relationship." From the day they met at the feet of the same
masters they recognised one another for brothers. The three names
of Ozanam, Lallier, and Lamache will not be again found separated
in the early part of this history.

Others joined up in the same way. They must aim at the same goal.
Ozanam wrote, that it was time to rally them around one flag ; the

44 FREDERICK OZANAM

flag of the defence of religion against impudent and insolent irreligion.

Everything hastened the necessity for that defence. The attack
was violent. Anti-Christianity raged in the Press, the schools, the
hustings. There was every support for doctrines which were called
liberal, and which under the July regime gave full play to every form
of free thought and party passion. The University especially was
taking full revenge for the discipline under which it had groaned during
the Restoration. The Sorbonne, the College of France, were parti
cularly aggressive. Our young Catholics who were not obscurantists
returned from those schools in pain, in anger, and in revolt.

But they were in a decided minority. Discouragement was general
even in the counsels of the Church in France. With timid silence
on the one hand, and brazen falsehood on the other, what could they
do, that handful of boys, against the voice of the recognised masters of
science and eloquence, borne on the wings of power and popular favour?
To listen in silence, to register no protest ! That they did not wish
to do. To write to the Press ? They would not be read. They de
cided to oppose speech to the spoken word, face to face, on the same
ground, at the same moment, to the same audience, whose pardon and
good-will they hoped to win, in the names of truth and liberty.

In a letter, dated loth February, 1832, that is to say, only four
months after his arrival in Paris, Ozanam gave the following account
of the plan of campaign against the anti-Christian teaching at the
Sorbonne : " We have in our growing ranks young men of noble dis
position who have given themselves up to this great work. Every
time that a Professor raises his voice against Revelation, Catholic
voices are raised in protest ! Many of us have agreed to do that.
On two different occasions I have taken my share in this noble work,
by sending in my objections in writing to those gentlemen. Our replies,
which are read out, have had the best possible effect both on the Pro
fessor, who all but retracted, and on the class, who applauded. The
most striking result is, that it shows the young student, that it
is possible to be a Catholic and have common sense, to love religion
and liberty at the same time. It serves to withdraw young men from
religious indifference, and to accustom them to the discussion of
serious matters."

A letter written to Ernest Falconnet adds : "Our cause is the cause
of the Gospel. I shall let you know all that will be done by us for
the honour and the victory of this holy cause."

JOUFFROY'S LECTURES 45

As a matter of fact, less than two months later, on the 25th March,
he writes that the first affairs " were but skirmishes," adding : " To
day, I am glad to be able to tell you that we are engaged in a more
serious encounter. The scene of the Battle is the Chair of Philosophy,
M.Jouffroy's lectures.

Attached to the Sorbonne, President of Conferences at the ficole
Normale, in charge of a course of lectures in the College of France,
Deputy for his constituency of Pontarlier since 1831, Theodore Jouffroy,
at the age of 36, was, by the elevation of his mind and the authority
of his speech, one of the leaders of free thought. He was the man of
evil omen who, in his famous Globe article, Whither Dogma Leads,
was sounding by degrees the knell of Christianity. He was the unquiet,
and troubled pschycologist who presented in a splendid way The
Problem of Human Destiny, the solution of which was only to be found,
according to him, in a helpless and plaintive scepticism. Under those
flowers of speech Ozanam declared that he saw nothing but ruins,
ruins both of faith and reason, on which the philosopher, with un
certain hand, was ready to rear the temple of future religion. He
exclaimed : "Such is M. Jouffroy's preaching in the Sorbonne, the
ancient Sorbonne, which Christianity founded, and the dome of which
is still crowned with the the sign of the Cross."

Ozanam described his protest as follows, without, however, men
tioning his own name : " M. Jouffroy, having gratuitously attacked
Revelation, and even the possibility of Revelation, a young Catholic
layman sent him a reply thereto in writing. The philosopher
promised to answer it ; he deferred his answer a fortnight, do^< vtless
to get his weapons ready. At the end of this period he did not read
out the letter of protest, but summarised it from his own point of view,
and endeavoured to reply to that. The young Catholic, finding him
self misrepresented, sent in a second letter to the Professor. The
latter took no notice of it, made no reference to it, but continued his
attacks, claiming that Catholicity was inconsistent with Science and
liberty.

"Thereupon we came together; we drew up a joint protest
proclaiming our sentiments ; it had fifteen signatures hurriedly
attached to it and was forwarded to M. Jouffroy. This time there was
no course left open to him but to read it -aloud. The large audience,
over two hundred in number, listened to our profession of faith with
respect. The philosopher laboured in vain to reply. He fashioned

46 FREDERICK OZANAM

excuses, assuring all that he had no desire to single out Christianity
for attack ; that he had the greatest possible respect for it, and that
in the future he would see that no form of religious belief was offended.
But more important still, he stated a very remarkable fact, and one
which gave great encouragement at that particular time: "Gentle
men," he said, " for the last five years the only objections I received
came from materialists ; it was spiritual doctrine that found the
greatest possible opposition ; to-day all is changed, the objections are
all from Catholics."

What Ozanam had put forward was simply an expression of
the inability of science to satisfy the intellectual needs of man,
the poverty of natural knowledge to fill the human mind, hungry
for supernatural enlightenment, the actual instability of reason as a
foundation for moral conduct. But, then, what follows immediately
and directly from these three facts, if not the necessity for Revelation ?

Such was his letter, with a pious and fraternal conclusion for the
benefit of the young student of Lyons, whom he expects at Paris :
" As for you, my dear friend, prepare for the struggle by the practice
of the Gospel which you will be called upon to defend. Pray for us
who are entering on our career and who stretch out our hands to you
with a great and fraternal friendship, while awaiting the day when
you will take your place in our ranks."

Thus was our young Daniel prophesying, in the name of the true
God, before princes and sages. Thus did the Professors of the Sor-
bonne iearn to know him who, ten years later, was to sit in their midst,
and to become their colleague. Meantime they became more moderate
in their language. Perhaps he who profited most was the same
Theodore Jouffroy, who said later, when dying : "All these systems
lead nowhere. A single act of Christian faith is worth many thousand
such."

In very truth the grace and light of God were at that time resting
on the young man scarce 20 years of age, whose lips and whose heart
the Divine Hand had touched and sanctified. It is still in the very
early days of his sojourn in Paris, it is on the morrow of his passionate
and lofty protest at the Sorbonne, that the letter dated the loth
February adds : " The most attractive and most edifying meetings
for Christian young men are the Conferences which the Abbe Gerbet
has inaugurated at our request."

OZANAM AT 20 (AFTER JANMOT).

THE ABB£ GERBET 47

Ozanam and his friends had sought at his place of residence in the
Sorbonne the priest, then 34 years of age, whom Cousin described as
" A mystical angel." Lecturer on Holy Scripture in the Faculty of
Theology in Paris, founder of the monthly magazine Le Memorial
Catholique," an erudite philosopher, a profound theologian, a refined
writer, the Abbe Gerbet had published in 1829 his Considerations,
both dogmatic and mystical, on what he called the " Motive Dogma
of Catholic Piety," that is the Blessed Eucharist. He sought traces of
primitive Revelation in universal tradition and in the historical
evidence of mankind. In this he was akin to Ozanam who also was
tending in this direction and who wrote as follows of him : " One can
now say that light is piercing the darkness. Every fortnight the
Abbe Gerbet gives us a lecture on the Philosophy of History. We have
never heard such analytic reasoning nor more profound doctrine.
So far he has given only three lectures, yet the Hall is crowded with
celebrities, and with young men thirsting for knowledge. I saw de
Potter, Sainte-Beuve, Ampere junior, drinking in the teaching of the
young priest."

Ozanam noticed that "Lammenais' system, as unfolded by the
Abbe Gerbet, was no longer the same as that of Lammenais' pro
vincial followers." It was not even the same as what its master
claimed to be the foundation of evangelical proof, but merely a pre
liminary series of inductive proofs leading to the truth of Revelation.
"It is," continues Ozanam, " the representation of the everlasting
alliance of faith and science, of charity and labour, of power and
liberty. Applied to history it enlightens it, it unravels the destiny of
the future. There were not any tricks of the charlatan ; his voice was
weak, his gestures awkward, his delivery easy and quiet. But towards
the end of the lecture he becomes animated, his face glows, the light
of Heaven is on his brow and prophecy on his lips." Have we not
in this picture of the Abbe Gerbet an advance portrait of Ozanam
himself as he is remembered by his audience in the Sorbonne ?

But those conferences, if I may say so, with closed doors, held in a
Hall — that of the Place de 1' Estrapade — capable of seating not more
than 300 people, were, in very truth, the light hidden under the bushel.
Ozanam asked himself if the advantage could not in some way be
extended to the young men of all the schools ? Why should not Paris
have, somewhere, its chair in defence of truth, answering in a modern
way every question and every need of the present time ? Such was

48 FREDERICK OZANAM

the burden of the conversation of these young men of good will. But
who would draw up the petition and present it in high place ?

The time was propitious. Owing to deplorable differences St.
Hyacinthe's Academy in the Madeleine — in which the Abbe Dupanloup
had given a brilliant series of lectures on Apologetics to the young men
— had been closed. Its closing saddened Ozanam who had visited it
occasionally out of curious interest. He showed his sympathy by
attending the closing meeting not without emotion. He reflected
on leaving, " Will there not then be in Paris one Chair of doctrine
at the feet of which we can sit for enlightenment ?" " Do you re
member," he wrote later to Lallier, " do you remember that famous
evening, when we had been present at the final meeting of St.
Hyacinthe's Academy. We came straight back and without parting,
drew up the petition to His Grace Monsignor de Quelen."

This was in the early days of June, 1833. The petition, drawn up
by Ozanam, received the signatures of 100 Catholics. An audience was
requested of His Grace the Archbishop, who at once accorded it.
The deputation consisted of three members, Ozanam, Le Jouteux, and
de Montazet, grand-nephew of the Archbishop of the same name.
They knew that the Archbishop himself was very much upset by the
closing of Saint Hyacinthe's Academy, and that the cause of the young
men was going to be prejudiced by that fact. It was no skeleton of an
Academy housed in a chapel, frequented by the initiated, that they
had come to ask for. It was no less than the institution in Notre Dame
itself, of a Chair of preaching which would be a sword and a torch for
the young men of the schools.

The Archbishop, who since the destruction of his residence had
been dwelling in the Convent of the Dames de Saint-Michel Rue
Saint Jacques, received the young men graciously. Encouraged by
the reception, they represented to him the state of mental unrest and
" the need for a chair of preaching, which in a modern form, and on the
very scene of daily controversy, should engage in hand to hand conflict
with the adversaries of Christianity. It would furnish a reply to the
objections and difficulties which were raised daily hi public courses
of lectures, and which were reproduced and popularised in books and
newspapers."

The Archbishop replied that he was of the same opinion ; then,
appearing, as it seemed, to be caught up by their infectious enthusiasm :
" Yes," said he, " I, too, have a presentiment that some great event

SECOND PETITION TO HIS GRACE 49

is in course of preparation. God is preparing a great victory in our
time." He then assured them that he would consider their petition
carefully. Thereupon, having blessed them and taken them affec
tionately in his arms, he pressed their heads against his breast, saying
with great emotion, " I salute in you all Catholic young men."

Nothing was done on that occasion. But the recollection of their
reception had left Ozanam and the growing number of his friends an
undefined hope that their petition had not been in vain. Therefore,
towards the beginning of the following Lent, 1834, Ozanam again
ventured to approach the Archbishop. The new petition received
200 signatures. It was in their name that on the i5th February,
Ozanam, Lallier and Lamache were admitted into the kindly and
fatherly presence. The petition was couched in beautiful terms.
It first recalled " the gracious reception and the hopeful words which
they had had the preceding year. Then, moved by the urgency of
the need, yet grown wiser by the time spent in waiting, they came to
pray for such instruction as should sanctify science in their eyes, and
demonstrate it and faith marching hand in hand. They were learning
to recognise how dry and barren study is, which is not animated by the
spirit of religion."

They spoke of their own age, in which man felt the need of well-
grounded doctrine to co-ordinate knowledge, on the one hand by
attaching it to a higher order of ideas, and, on the other by laying a
foundation of duty, and by tracing the path of future life. Religion
alone can do that ; but it must be known : " Therefore, your Grace,
we had desired those conferences which, without losing time in refuting
objections which are to-day outworn, would display Christianity in
all its grandeur, and in harmony with the aspirations and necessities
of man and society."

To that end they asked for " an exposition of the philosophy of
science and art which would discover in Catholicity the source of all
truth and beauty; of the philosophy of life, which would show its
principle, its progress, and its destiny. They desired that that
instruction should come from the pulpit, because the grace which
fortifies, the enlightenment which converts, flow from the lips of the
priest. They desired that at the feet of that pulpit and in the same
building there should be room for all, believers or unbelievers, all
receiving in silence the seeds of conviction which would germinate in
time. Already we have seen many of our fellow students return to the

50 FREDERICK OZANAM

light. They had strayed from it because they did not recognise it.
Oh ! if we could only see that example followed by all the young men
of the schools ! If they only knew the beauty of Christianity how
they would love it."

The petition gave a glimpse of the Society of Charity which was
being established among these young men, united by brotherly affec
tion, and by a common faith. It thus concluded, " Then a chorus
of praise to God will ascend from all these souls grounded in faith or
consoled by charity, a chorus of filial gratitude to the Church, and
benediction of Him who will have been the Author of all this good !'
At the conclusion of this document these young Christians could truly
style themselves "The most humble and obedient servants of His
Grace, and his devoted children in Jesus Christ."

The Archbishop was much moved. He encouraged Ozanam, their
spokesman, to speak with confidence, so struck was he by the extra
ordinarily clear views of a youth of 20 years of age. The latter made
bold to mention the names of two priests who would make a success
of the undertaking. There could not be any question of the Abbe
Gerbet, whose weak voice would not be able to reach such a vast
audience. One of the two whom they mentioned was the Abbe
Bautain. He had been a talented student of M. Cousin at the £cole
Normale and had just come over with note from the philosophy of
Rationalism to the true faith. The other probable candidate, and
obviously the better, was the Abbe Lacordaire, whose defence before
the House of Peers, with Montalembert in his Procts de l'£cole libre,
and whose able collaboration in the periodical L'Avenir, had made him
dear to the young men.

But what marked him out now for their choice was the brilliant
success of his Conferences at Stanislaus College. From the iQth
January, when they had been inaugurated, academic and political
celebrities had surged with admiration to the foot of the modest but
now celebrated pulpit in the all too narrow chapel. There the first
sacred orator of Paris showed himself to the young men of the schools
as the apologist whom they wanted.

But those very qualities which recommended Lacordaire to the
young men, originality of mind and speech adapted to the modern trend
of thought, were exactly those which tended to make him suspect to the
ancients in the sanctuary. The latter were interested defenders of
classical traditions and of ancient ecclesiastical formulas. His collabora-

DECISION OF HIS GRACE 51

tion in the editing of the Avenir was moreover, at the time of the early
defection of Lamennais, not a recommendation. Prejudiced minds
did not distinguish between those who remained rooted in error, and
those who loyally broke with it at any and every sacrifice. Had
Ozanam's frank spirit any conception of the mountain of prejudice
which he would have to remove in order to carry at the first assault
Lacordaire into the pulpit of Notre Dame. Without expressing any
opinion on the suggested names, Monsignor de Quelen, naturally
hesitating and halting, informed the three delegates that he proposed
to make such a beginning as would, in his opinion, satisfy them. This
consisted in granting them not one preacher, but seven, selected from
the elite of his clergy, who were each to take a Sunday in Lent and
preach in turn from the pulpit of Notre Dame on the lines suggested.
It was the reply of a man of 1804 to the young men of 1834. He was
asked for the bread of Lacordaire, he offered the stone of Monsignor
Frayssinous.

" While the conversation on this delicate subject was going forward,
the delegates presenting their objections with all deference, the prelate
insisting on his solution, the door of the salon opened and M. de
Lamennais appeared. Monsignor ran to meet him, shook him warmly
by the hand and turning to the young men said, " Here is, gentlemen,
the man that would suit you. If his voice could be heard in Notre
Dame, the great portals of the metropolitan would be too small to
admit the crowds whom his name would attract." Whereupon — it is
Lamache who is relating the incident — whereupon, I still seem to see
Lamennais, raising his large eyes filled with inexpressible sadness saying :
" As for me, Monsignor, as far as I am concerned, my career is ended."

It was indeed at an end ; for (a fact which they did not then know),
the Paroles d'un Croyant were printed and about to be published.
The three young men arose and took their departure.

The following day an account of the interview appeared in the
Universe, the result of an indiscretion. Ozanam and Lallier, who
strongly disapproved of it, felt bound to see the Archbishop and
apologise for it. Monsignor de Quelen received them as he had done
the day before. To show them how anxious he was to meet their
wishes, he told them that he had at once sent for the preachers whom
he had named and that they were actually meeting in the next room.
He put the delegates into touch with them. They were left with
these seven priests, among whom the best known were the Abbe

52 FREDERICK OZANAM

Dupanloup, the Abbe Petetot. The others were Peres Fraysse,
Dassance, Thibaut, James, Annat. A discussion ensued which was
at first somewhat reserved, but which became more animated. It was
carried on with the best possible desire to understand one another
and under the delusion that they would succeed.

As a matter of fact there was no chance whatever of their coming
together. Ozanam's conviction pushed the assault to the extremest
limits without as much as piercing the first line of their defence. They
separated without understanding each other. Ozanam, on his return
to his rooms, drew up a short memorandum for the Archbishop, re
inforcing what he had already said ; it was his last cartridge, and it
was so much waste powder. The series of the seven sermons was
opened in Notre Dame on the i6th February 1834. It met with but
a paltry success. The young men still crowded to the chapel in
Stanislaus College around the Abbe Lacordaire.

Lacordaire about this time received his first visit from Ozanam,
which he thus described in 1854 : " I must go back over many years
for my first meeting with Ozanam. I had not yet commenced the
course of instruction, which gained me disciples and friends, and
I was unsettled in mind. Just at that moment came Ozanam, the
advance guard of the army of young men that was to raise me out of my
dejection by crowding around my pulpit. ... It was in the winter
of 1833-34. He appeared to be about 20 years of age, without the
fresh beauty of youth. Pale, like the men of Lyons, of middle height,
without grace, his eyes shot piercing glances while his face presented an
appearance of gentleness. His brow which was not without a certain
nobility, was adorned with a fringe of thick long black hair which gave
him a certain air of wildness designated by the Latin word incomptus

What did he want of me at that time ? Ozanam came to

me because he was a Christian and I was a priest. But he also came,
urged on by concern for all that he held dearest in the world, faith,
country, charity, the future of Christianity and Truth. The young man
had arrived in Paris to find the ruins caused by impiety which called itself
liberty. The fragile edifice (La Congregation) which had afforded a place
of refuge to those few who had perchance survived, no longer existed ;
the Revolution of 1830 had trampled it under foot ; and Ozanam
arrived pure, sincere and zealous, to find himself in a silent void.

" It never occurred to him that God had sent him to fill that void.
Yet, on the morrow of defeat, he was to be one of the first to acquire,

LACORDAIRE 53

in the name of Jesus Christ, the holy power of a popularity without
reproach. As for us, who belonged to both periods, who had ex
perienced both contempt and honour, our eyes grew moist with tears
that would not be kept back at the prospect, and we fell down in
thanksgiving to Him " Who cannot err in His gifts."

How best to state that the conferences in Stanislaus College were
suspended ? That, when Lacordaire asked to be allowed to resume
them, conditions were imposed, which neither his sense of dignity nor
his sense of liberty could accept ? He had been denounced to the
Government " as a fanatical Republican, who was quite capable of
turning the mind of the young men." He was denounced to the
Archbishop as a preacher of novel and dangerous doctrine. Lacordaire
withdrew and remained silent.

No one was more affected by this counter-attack than the young
Christian, who had based great hopes on those addresses. Nevertheless
no one knew better than he how to maintain his hope and his faith
in the face of the trial. The only complaint which escaped his lips
was an admirable act of charity for his brothers in misfortune, and of
noble submission to the hand of God, which would ever be his sole,
his all-powerful support. He wrote as follows to M. Velay : —

"We are not to hear Lacordaire again. It is a great grief to us
who needed the bread of the Word, and who had grown accustomed
to such excellent nourishment, to be deprived of it suddenly without
any substitute. It is still a greater sorrow for us to see our brothers
who were on the road to truth, return to their wandering ways, shaking
their heads and shrugging their shoulders."

" It may be that Heaven demanded that silence, that abstention
on the part of Catholics, as yet another sacrifice. It may be that we
had dared to look up too soon. We put our hope in the speech of one
man ; and God placed His hand on that mouth, to teach us to be
Christians without him, to teach us to do without everything save only
faith and virtue." That half page is pure gold.

Ozanam knew how to wait without allowing his weapons for religious
defence to rust. Exactly two months later, the same Catholic young
men, who protested against the philosophic teaching in the Sorbonne,
the same signatories to the petition for the institution of sermons in
Notre Dame, were again standing shoulder to shoulder defending liberty
and truth against those who were attacking the growing Catholic
University of Louvain.

54 FREDERICK OZANAM

Ozanam wrote as follows to a friend : " You must lend your name

and hand over the sum of one smiling under the following circumstances.

You doubtless are aware that the Belgian Bishops have founded a

University. As such an institution was certain to be a brilliant success

in such a Catholic country as Belgium, irreligion has become alarmed ;

groups of students from the State University of Louvain have shouted

insults under the windows of two of the Bishops ; scurrilous attacks

have also appeared in the Press. We have thought it our duty to

send a reply, in the name of the Catholic youth of the University of

France, and we have drawn up a protest which has been inserted in

the French Gazette, in the Catholic Universe and in three Belgian papers.

All our mutual friends have signed and subscribed." ....

Ozanam wrote the protest on the I5th April 1834. It stated :
" The Belgian episcopate have founded a University, both Catholic
and free. — A Catholic University : It should be a cause of rejoicing
to the Church, to see raised within her yet another monument to the
immortal alliance of Science and Faith, yet another contradiction
for those who announce the early decease of Christianity — A free
University : this should be a source of pride for all friends of Belgian
nationality, proud of the foundation, in a land too long enslaved, of
an institution free from all foreign protection, free from all state
intervention, worthy of a people who are the true friends of enlighten
ment and liberty."

Ozanam then went on to deal with the vulgar abuse, the insults
worthy of a fishwife, hurled by students, alike unworthy of their time
and of their country, sad remnants of the impious i8th century. The
student youth of Paris, standing shoulder to shoulder with their
Belgian confreres, speaking the same tongue, engaged in the same
studies, could not but be interested in their achievements. " We even
protest/' he continued, " in the name of those, who, while not pro
fessing our belief, desire freedom for the development of all great
conceptions, of all noble thoughts, of all useful undertakings."

Ozanam does not indeed forget that he and his friends are the
students of a State University. " But," he said, " we are first and
above all sons of the Church ; without ingratitude to our own alma
mater, we to-day envy our Belgian brothers the happiness of receiving
from one and the same hand, the bread of scientific knowledge and the
bread of the Sacred Word ; they have not to divide their instruction into
two parts, one of error and one of truth." That is his Act of Faith.

LOUVAIN 55

In conclusion, he hopes " that one day France also will enjoy a like
benefit." Meanwhile, as a token of fraternal affection, he and his
friends subscribe for some shares in the undertaking. "The word
' share ' is a grand word. But it need not frighten even a student's
purse, for, as each ' share ' is only one shilling, there is not a single
student who cannot become a shareholder, without encroaching too
heavily on his capital."

To-day, 76 years later, the Catholic University of Louvain numbers
2,000 students ; France can point to five Catholic Universities.
Ozanam's desire has been granted.

The next year 1835, on the 8th of March, Lacordaire took possession
of the pulpit in Notre Dame, for the greater honour and glory of God.
What aid did Ozanam, first as a student and then as a professor, bring
to the master's address ? We shall answer that question in its
proper place.

It was full time that Truth should find expression through a worthy
channel. About that time a letter of Ozanam 's stated that Lamennais
had just sent on its stormy passage the Paroles d'un Croyant. "One
hears nothing but discussion of this publication," he wrote sadly.
" Pere Lacordaire criticises it very severely, and looks forward to its
complete repudiation at an early date. The intimate friends of the
great author, Gerbet, de Coux, Montalembert, have broken definitely
with him, so that he appears to be absolutely alone. May God have
mercy on him !"

" Farewell, my dear friend, let us love one another. The great
feasts of the Church are approaching. Let us be found together in
the presence of God, since we cannot come together in the sight of
men. Unable to exchange conversation, let us pray for one another ;
that will be still better !"

CHAPTER V.

THE CONFERENCE OF HISTORY.
THE OPEN CONFERENCE. — DEFENCE OF THE CHURCH BY SPEECH AND PEN. —

La Tribune. — La Revue Contemporaine. — SAINT SIMONIANS. —
VArm De La Religion. — CHARITABLE ACTION. — "LET us GO TO
THE POOR."

1833.

The Conference of History and of Philosophy which M. Bailly, with
the co-operation of Ozanam, had founded on the ruins of the Societe
des Bonnes Etudes had quadrupled its membership in one year. Thus
Ozanam was able to write on the I3th March 1833 : " To-day the
Conference numbers sixty young men, many of great ability, and the
large hall in which we meet is filled to overflowing." We have
already seen first a hundred, on a second occasion two hundred signa
tures at the foot of Ozanam 's petitions to Monsignor de Quelen. If
all those were not members of the Conference, they were, at least,
all friends.

A little handbook which was published towards the close of 1833
furnishes a long and varied list of the subjects of debate in the Con
ference during the year. In addition to the scientific works to which
we shall refer, Ozanam mentions " Poetry and its Influence," " Clerical
and Lay Action," and " The Philosophy of Christianity." He read
his own verses on New Year's Day. Lallier read papers on "Mahom-
medanism," " Moral and Material Wealth," the " Economic Theory
of Critical and Organic Epochs." Lamache examined, "Painting
on Glass, Architecture and Statuary in the Middle Ages." Le
Taillandier treated " The History of Religious Orders," " The Funda
mental Beliefs of Antiquity," " The Constitution of the Jewish Nation."
Dan ton, the future Inspector-General of the University, reviewed 'The

PAPERS READ AT MEETINGS 57

Spanish Insurrection under Charles VI." Cheruel handled "The Prin
ciples of Wealth," "The Present State of Religion and Philosophy,"
a " Glance into the Future," etc. We learn that "many points of view
found expression on the platform, that the love of Truth presided over
the debates, that though members might differ in opinions, they never
differed in friendship."

Nor were the papers always on pure dilettantism . Ozanam frequently
introduced ardent religious propaganda, for the Conference was, in
his eyes, the theatre of an "intellectual apostolate." He was careful
and conscientious in his preparation. He confides to one of his Lyons
friends that he works hard at any paper he prepares. " I am writing
a short history of the religious conceptions of antiquity for the Con
ference ; I have already examined those of China and India. However
shallow the research may be, it is always of value to me, for it always
establishes the same truth. After traversing a long labyrinth of
allegories and myths, one discovers at the end the key-word of mystery,
which is the Word of God."

Each Conference was summarised by a Committee who reported
to a full meeting. The discussion on the report was, among those
young men, a veritable battle.

Whereas the Societe des Bonnes Etudes had been a closed body,
reserved for a certain class of young Catholics of a particular shade
of political thought, the Conference of History was open to every mind
desirous of instruction, to every shade and difference of contemporary
thought, all of which Ozanam counted on bringing over to his propaganda.
•' The lists are open to every form of thought, even to the doctrines
of St. Simon, and, politics alone excepted, there is full and complete
liberty of debate. Young philosophers come to demand from Catholic
ity an account of its doctrine and of its works. Then, impelled by
the inspiration of the moment, one of us faces the attack, develops
the Christian point of view which has been misunderstood, unfolds
the pages of history to show the glory of the works of the Church, and
finding perhaps an unexpected fund of eloquence in the grandeur of
the subject, establishes upon a solid basis the immortal union of true
philosophy and faith."

This ' one of us ' was generally Ozanam himself, as being incon-
testably the one who knew most and spoke best. He was ready,
quick, prompt and picturesque in reply. In his eyes the enemy was
always the Saint Simon doctrine, discredited, it is true, in its applica-

58 FREDERICK OZANAM

tion, but attractive in its philosophy. It was then orienting towards
Positivism under Augusta Comte, Professor in the Polytechnic. Just
as after 1880, it claimed to be the "Religion of Humanity," the suc
cessor to ancient Christianity which was now outworn and defunct.
Answering on one occasion a speaker who, in the role of gravedigger,
would proceed in haste to inter ancient Christianity, Ozanam thus
began : " When the savages in America are getting ready to make a
bloody descent on their brothers in the desert, they never fail, in order
to buoy up their courage, to chant a war-song, celebrating the victory
that is to come, counting in advance the scalps torn from their enemies.
Such is, according to travellers, the custom of the Hurons and the
Iroquois. Is it possible that this custom has penetrated here? Is
it not, as a matter of fact, to be found in the paean of triumph pre
maturely intoned by a biassed partisan ?"

This conqueror " in a hurry " was called Broet. " M. Broet claims
that Catholicity is a spent force, that it is expiring in the anarchy
which is tearing it to pieces, in the lethargy which is lulling it into a
sleep of death, unconcerned and incapable of benefiting humanity.
I beg of him to pursue that line of thought with me."

The rest may be surmised. " The Church, divine in the enduring
basis of its constitution and the perpetual and universal fruitfulness
of its action, teaching truth, doing good, radiating beauty through
out the ages ; reigning to-day over men's minds, hearts and morals ;
adored by her children, victorious over her enemies, a conqueror of
two hemispheres." . . . Having thus re-habilitated the condemned
one, the young apostle stops and exclaims : " It is enough. What
purpose does it serve to shout to the nations 'Catholicity is dead !' ?
Our ears are deafened with that funeral oration for the last eighteen
hundred years. That same presumed death was hurled in the teeth
of the Apostles. They, too, heard the agonies of the dying referred
to, Quasi Morientes. They answered nothing ; but they conquered
the world."

The young man joined propaganda by speech with that of the pen
in the Press. The Catholic Press was then represented by some poor
publications. The clergy knew only " The Friend of Religion and of
the King" —which had then become " The Friend of Religion " with
out the King— when M. Bailly in 1832 returned to publish La Tribune,
Gazette du Clerge, if not actually in opposition to it, certainly in com
petition with it. It claimed " to raise the interests of the Church

SAINT-SIMONISM 59

above passing political opinions, to be open to ideas of progress through
Christianity, to be sympathetic to the development of the alliance of
Science and Faith, to repudiate Gallicanism as well as Absolutism, and to
be definitely opposed to violent attacks and bitter polemics. " That was
the declaration of its policy in which Frederick Ozanam collaborated.

For example, he wrote in 1833, dealing with a work on Hebrew : —
" You will find that all rational truth tends to religious truth. Our
personal task is, of course, much less. The truths of science are too
widely separated and too intricate for one man to collect them as a
scattered herd, and drive them before him into the fold. We must
give the Christian direction to each one in turn."

A short while afterwards, in July 1833, The Tribune received a still
more magnificent and touching contribution from Ozanam. Saint
Simonism, already shattered and undermined by ridicule, had sunk
in immorality. Its leaders were condemned by law. That was a victory
for Ozanam, but he did not celebrate the triumph. Instead of tramp
ling on the fallen enemy, he made a grand gesture, if not to raise him,
at least to pity him and to give him credit for noble aspirations. He
appealed to him to direct those aspirations henceforward to the true
Christ, Who alone could satisfy their hearts. Instead of indulging in the
prevailing fashion of ridiculing the vanquished, he congratulated them
on having shaken off the cloak of indifference in material matters,
in order to lead men to think of serious questions of doctrine ; on
having dreamed in their own way of the redemption of suffering human
ity ; on having done homage to the Gospel even while making it
subtle : " The followers of Saint- Simon have wandered from the true
path," he insisted with a touching confidence. " For many, that de
viation from orthodoxy will be a bending of th^ bow which will spring
back again. They are looking for Christ unwittingly. Some have
already returned to Him. His arms and the arms of the Church are
open to receive the others."

Must not one admire in that article from a very young man " a
merciful impartiality, a loftiness of view, a natural tendency to soar,
forming one of the best written pieces of Ozanam, the student ? It
is better than a master-piece of intellect, it is a master-piece of charity /'

That charity of heart towards those who differed from them, whether
they were humiliated or reconciled, was more powerful for victory
than the charm of eloquence ! It was none other than the highest
form of religious instruction, coupled with the most ardent zeal of an

6o FREDERICK OZANAM

apostle. These young men owed their superiority in the Conference of
History to their superior religious instruction as well as to their religious
zeal. Ozanam thus explains it : "As the Catholics equal the non-
Catholics in number and as they bring to bear on the discussion greater
knowledge, ardour, zeal, and assiduity, victory remains always with
them."

Their unity also gave them strength. "Easy and intimate friendship
a kind of brotherhood reigns among us ; with the others graciousness
and courtesy. There are a round dozen of us, more closely united
still by ties of mind and heart, a kind of literary company of devoted
and sincere friends, who open their souls to each other to express in
turn their joys, their hopes and their sorrows."

Ozanam drew the following charming picture of their serious and
joyous friendship. " Occasionally, when the air was pure and the
breeze balmy, the police, with furtive eyes, could see in the light of the
moon reflected from the majestic dome of the Pantheon, six or eight
young men walking arm in arm for hours on that deserted square.
Their countenances were open, their gait easy, their language enthusias
tic, touching, consoling. They spoke of many things earthly and
divine ; they gave expression to many noble thoughts, many pious
recollections ; they spoke of God and of their parents ; also of friends
who were still at home, of their country and of mankind. The frivolous
Parisian, who brushed against them on his way to his amusements,
did not understand their speech ; it was a dead language which few
here know. But I, I understood them, for I was of them, listening
to them. I felt and I spoke as they did, and my heart grew strong.
I seemed to become a man, and weak and timid as I am, I drew there
from strength and energy for the work of the morrow."

This " weak and timid one" was nevertheless he who encouraged
them. The "enthusiastic, touching, and consoling language" which
they exchanged is the language of his letters of the period, January
and March, 1833 : " We indeed have need of something to occupy us,
to transport us, to dominate and elevate our thoughts. We need
poetry in this cold and prosaic world. But philosophy is also needed
to link up our ideal conceptions. A complete doctrine forms the
basis of our studies, the motive-power of our action. Catholicism must
be this central point towards which are to tend all the enquiries of
our intelligence, all the visions of our imagination. Then mental

LACK OF EXPERIENCE 61

vagueness, the evil and depression and the weakness of our age,
will disappear."

These young men did not lack enthusiasm, but they were altogether
wanting in experience. Did the Conference of History realise whither
the admission of every form of religious belief would lead it ? Was
not its ardent religious zeal mistaken ? While this young Catholic
elite submitted its platform to every form of objection, could it be
sure that with all its study, it was in possession of every possible
solution ? Ozanam certainly draws attention to the fact, that dis
cussion was not on purely theological matters, but only on the history,
and the social action of Catholicism. But it is none the less true that
to see the sacred cause of religion entrusted for safe-keeping in to hands,
which were yet so inexperienced and so poorly equipped, was not re
assuring to those who were not so favourable to the boldness of the
young men.

One of those was the venerable Pere Picot, founder and editor of
the journal, The Friend of Religion. He was of the old regime, whom
faithful service in the Catholic Press had invested with almost dicta
torial authority among the clergy. Biassed by training against every
form of innovation, made distrustful, even obessed by the excesses of
the school of Lamennais, he became alarmed at a like peril, to which the
doctrine of truth was exposed, when expounded and defended by those
juvenile apologists freed from all ecclesiastical control and direction.

It was, in addition, the period of the appearance of the Paroles d'un
Croyant. Outstripping the violence of that mad pamphlet Professor
Lherminier had just written " The Papacy is completely exhausted.
In our country intellect despises it, and it remains silent. But if I
were free to expose the secret contempt you would see what worlds of
contumely are heaped on that institution."

Ozanam took up the insulting challenge. Ignoring Lherminier and
Lamennais, he explained to the Conference of History, in his broad
and impersonal way, the secular role of the Papacy. He described it
as distributing to all, and above all to the little ones, the triple food,
material, intellectual, and moral. He traced it back to the Capitol :
" Outside it no discoveries worth mentioning have been made, nor,"
concluded he, " does anyone hope to surpass her discoveries. Jesus
Christ founded a new intellectual world. Subsequent discoveries
are but like some petty isles adjacent to the great continent of the
revealed world."

62 FREDERICK OZANAM

It happened at the same time and place that a confrere, young £lie
de Kertanguy, felt himself called to the defence of the Croyant and
repeated some of its attacks on the political tyranny of Popes and
Kings. Now, Kertanguy was Lamennais' secretary, and was to
become his nephew by marriage. Ozanam, in reply, challenged, as
delicately as possible, the panegyrist on the ground of the double
connection which put him altogether out of court. Kertanguy with
drew his unfortunate expressions and declared that he alone was
responsible for them.

The Friend of Religion held the Conference responsible for what
had been said, and especially the member who was Vice-President
and well-known to be the leader. " All that had been said was only a
rehash of worked-up, old-time, false charges." Then taking a serious
tone : " The danger in present circumstances will be understood.
One can appreciate from what has happened, how far young people
can be misled in favour of theories and systems. It is to be hoped,
that reflection and experience will gradually win them back from
that position."

That was indeed a warning as well as a denunciation.

Ozanam was yet unaware of the cause when a letter of abject apology
reached him, not from the author of the article, but from one
who had unwittingly been the cause of the denunciation, by making
an incomplete and biassed account of Ozanam's speech to the editor
of The Friend of Religion. He was a young ardent Royalist named
Cartier. He was now filled with remorse at the pain which he had
caused his dear Ozanam, and he confessed his fault and sought pardon
in a three-page letter. The incident reflected honour on Ozanam.
His reply to Cartier, which has only recently come to light, is a model
of cordiality, generosity, and dignity. The following is an extract :

" Sir, I thank you for the loyalty which you have shown, in drawing
my attention to the attack on me in The Friend of Religion. Any
imprudence of yours in the matter is more than atoned for by the
generous avowal which you have been kind enough to make.

" We are young, we are all likely to make similar mistakes. But
we are also Christians and we must forgive and forget an involuntary
mistake. Your action on my behalf merits gratitude ; nay more, it
commands my regard and wins my friendship".

" Therefore, I promise that I shall not mention this matter in the
Conference, even though it grieves me sorely ; or if, for some good

OZANAM'S ANSWER 63

reason I find myself forced to refer to it, I promise you to do so in such
a way that I shall not hurt your feelings. It is quite likely that we
are not of the same political views. But we shall always be at one on
the impregnable maxims of religion and charity. May the relations,
which this unpleasant affair has established between us, knit firmly
the bonds of Catholic brotherhood, and ensure, for both, happy
recollections ! I am, sir, your most obedient servant and affectionate
colleague."

Thus could Ozanam pardon.

A letter was enclosed which Cartier was requested to forward to
the anonymous ecclesiastic, who was the writer of the article : " There
is not anything objectionable in the enclosed, merely an appeal to his
kindness and his sense of justice. I hope that you will be good enough
to see that it reaches his hands. I am very anxious on the point."

The enclosed reply was to this effect : "You have done me the honour
to discuss me, a young and unknown man, in your last issue; you analysed
an address which I delivered in a private literary gathering, in which
prudence and peace are desired beyond all else. Since you set suffi
cient value on our friendly discussions to entertain your good readers
with them, you should at least observe a scrupulous accuracy. Yet
the summary, which you have made, truncates my thought and
ascribes odious and ridiculous expressions to me. It contains also
severe condemnation of my views, and attributes to me intentions
which I altogether disavow."

Ozanam had been charged with attacking monarchy.

" As a student, I am studying history according to my lights. I
do not know if I am right, but I do not make false charges. I am
represented as belonging to a school of thought which is hostile to
Kings. Being a Christian, I glory in belonging to no other school
than that of Truth, which is the Church. But if my sympathy in
clines in any direction it is in favour of a wise Monarchy." Ozanam
was grieved to see such censure visited by a man of venerable age on
some young men, who, though few in number, had found the requisite
courage in their faith for a lofty defence of their holy Mother the
Church. " But it is not a declaration of political principles which
I desire to make here. The day will come perhaps when I shall
be entitled to hold these opinions. Meantime I live by my faith,
which I have from my God, and by my honour which I have from my
parents. You will allow me to defend the one and the other."

64 FREDERICK OZANAM

Pere Picot did not refuse to insert Ozanam's rather lively reply ;
its feeling and sincerity touched, but did not convince him.*

However, the sensitive conscience of the young man had not waited
for those warnings of June, 1834. Certain occurrences had already
startled his sense of responsibility. It had happened that in the
course of discussions which had arisen unexpectedly, the champions
of Christianity, taken unawares, had been found unequal to their
task. They came together at Lamache's, to settle on the steps to
be taken to avoid similar surprises. They did not succeed.

Lallier, one of the three delegates, was one day condoling with the
elder of the little band, Le Taillandier, a Rouen man, a student in the
second year of law, who was of a cold and practical turn of mind. The
latter concluded quietly as follows : " I should much prefer some other
kind of meeting, one altogether composed of young Christians who,
instead of controversy and debate, should devote themselves to the
practice of good works." But would not that be to surrender ? He
found no reply to that objection on this occasion.

Other signs were not wanting. Ozanam thus refers to them :
" When we Catholics, in our relations with unbelievers, deists,
followers of Saint Simon, Fourierists, artificers in the re-moulding
of society, when we sought to direct their attention to the benefits
conferred by Christianity, we were met with the invariable answer,
" You are right when you speak of the past, in former times
Christianity worked wonders ; but what is it doing for humanity
to-day ? Even you, who pride yourself on your Catholicity, what
are you doing to show the vitality and efficacy, to prove the truth of
your faith ?" Ozanam was much affected by that challenge.

An event happened just at this time that emphasized the urgency
of the question of which Lamache gives the following account : " One
of the Conferences of History, in these same early months of 1833, was
more stormy than usual. Ozanam had to face unjust and bitter
attacks. He left the meeting very sad. It was the outrage offered
to God and to the Church that saddened him. " How sad it is,"
said he to us, " to see our holy mother the Church attacked so violently f
and Catholicity travestied and maligned !"

*I have great pleasure in referring the reader on this whole matter to the four
articles of M. Georges Goyau in the Revue pratique d'Apologttique, Vol. xiv,
which are entitled Intellectual Apostohte of young Ozanam. In those articles the
popular Catholic writer has made the whole scene live again, the mind, the action,
the faith and the great heart of the man, to whom he is related on all sides.

THE GROWTH OF THE IDEA 65

He did not advise the abandonment of the defence of religion.
" Let us," said he, " continue to stand in the breach and face the attack.
But do you not feel, as I do, the need of some other little society,
outside of this militant Conference, which would be composed of
religious friends, who would work as well as talk, and who would thus,
by showing the vitality of their faith, affirm its truth."

" Looking back over half a century," continues Lamache, " that
little scene is still fresh in my memory. I still see Ozanam's eyes
filled with sadness, but also with ardour and with fire. I still hear
that voice which betrayed the deep emotion of his soul. When the
little group broke up, each member carried away in his heart the fiery
arrow which Our Lord Jesus had sent forth in the speech of our young
comrade." So far Ozanam had only outlined Christian action hi a
general way ; but what particular kind of action ? On a subsequent
day, when they had come together in somewhat larger numbers in
the more commodious rooms of M. Serre in the Petite rue des Gres,
the matter was advanced a step further. Ozanam insisted that
the Conference of History should carry on, but admitted at the same
time that it was a source of mortification. He opened his heart to
them as follows : " After a year's working and struggling," he asked, "has
any good come of this Conference, to which I have sacrificed my legal
studies and by which I have earned for myself the just reproaches
of my family. In return for such trials and sacrifices have we made
one single conquest for Jesus Christ ?"

Then with humility, but with determination, he added : " If our
efforts have not succeeded, is it not because something is lacking to
the supernatural efficacy of our speech ?" He thought so, adding:
" Yes, one thing is wanting that our apostolate may be blessed by
God — works of charity. The blessing of the poor is the blessing of
God."

The Abbe Ozanam, the clearest of Frederick's biographers, adds
the following note to Lamache's account of the first beginnings of the
Conference of Charity : " On leaving there, Frederick found himself
with Le Taillandier, who was not less deeply affected. " Well, to be
practical, what are we going to do to translate our faith into deeds ?"
they asked one another. The answer came from the same Christian
heart : " We must do what is most agreeable to God. Therefore, we
must do what Our Lord Jesus Christ did when preaching the Gospel.
Let us go to the poor."

66 FREDERICK OZANAM

They both acted, and acted at once. That very evening Ozanam
and Le Taillandier carried to a poor family of their acquaintance the
remaining supply of wood which they had for the last months of
winter.

Four years later, Ozanam, in a letter to Le Taillandier, dated the
2 ist August, 1837, recalling those times, added this detail : " Will you
not found a Conference at Le Mans ? Will you not give us brothers,
you, who were one of our fathers : you who were, well I remember, the
first author of our Society \ " It is also true that in another letter
Ozanam gives the same title of first founder to M. Bailly, its first
president. In the modest opinion of this young man, every one but
himself would have been the founder.

Electrified by his suggestion, those present entrusted him with the
task of forthwith communicating their charitable plan to M. Bailly,
and requesting him to become its president. They could not have
applied to anyone better inclined or better qualified.

67

CHAPTER VI.

THE CONFERENCE OF CHARITY.
THE SOCIETY OF ST. VINCENT DE PAUL.

M. BAILLY, PRESIDENT. — OZANAM, FOUNDER. — THE BEGINNING. — SISTER

ROSALIE. — OZANAM AMONG HIS POOR. — THE FEAST OF CORPUS

CHRISTI AT NANTERRE. — AMPERE AND OZANAM. —

GUSTAVE DE LA NOUE.

M. Bailly had drunk in sentiments of charity in his own home.
Devotion to St. Vincent de Paul was a family tradition. His father
died at Brias, near Bethune, in Artois, and possessed at the time of his
death a large collection of manuscripts belonging to the Saint, which
were guarded like a treasure in the home. The name of him who was
called by his parents the family Saint was never pronounced save with
devotion. His brother, the Abbe Bailly, joined the Vincentian Order.
He, himself, deeply imbued with the spirit of the great apostle, entered
the service of charity in the world. About the year 1830, M. Bailly
had become the right hand man of the Abbe Borderies in the manage
ment of the " Society of Good Works," and also of the Abbe Des-
genettes, who was at that time parish priest of the Church of the
Missions. Madame Bailly shared her husband's devotion to Our Lord
Jesus Christ in the person of the poor. At the request of Sister
Rosalie, she had undertaken with a friend to visit some poor in their
homes. Discouraged by the reception she met with in that work she

68 FREDERICK OZANAM

agreed with her husband that " it was not women's work. Men,
and young men, were wanted for it."4

It was while under the influence of that expression of opinion,
that M. Bailly received the communication of Ozanam and his friends.
It recommended itself strongly to him. "The project of a small private
association, altogether devoted to works of charity met with his cordial
approval," reports Lallier. As to what works should be adopted, he
expressed the opinion that the parish priest of their Parish, St.
£tienne du Mont, should be first consulted. The parish priest was
the Abbe Ollivier, later Bishop of fivreux. Not having had any
previous knowledge of their project he contented himself for the
moment with advising the brave young volunteers to teach Catechism
to the children of the poor.

But their zeal was altogether directed towards the visitation of the
poor. M. Bailly was of the opinion that, if carried out with prudence,
it would have on themselves, even more than on those whom they would
visit, the most salutary influence. Four members were already
certain. Ozanam pointed out two more who were members of the

* Ozanam, completely effacing himself, gives expression to the following
charming sentiments of humility and gratitude when speaking of M. Bailly's
services, in the Circular- Letter of llth June, 1844, which he, as Vice- President,
issued to Conferences on the resignation of the venerable President-General :

" It was M. Bailly who had in 1833 the inspiration to call together a few
young men for a charitable purpose under the patronage of St. Vincent de Paul.
It was a time when many good men, still timid, stood aside from Associations
of good works. Those few young men little expected the marvellous multipli
cation which is to be seen to-day. It was he who gave them a place of meeting,
counsel, and example ; who taught them how to meet for mutual edification and
support ; how to recruit new members, how to help the poor, etc. When our
members increased and it became necessary to reduce into form our simple
practices, it was M. Bailly who wrote the preliminary drafts, instinct with the
maxims of our holy Patron, and which definitely fixed the spirit of the Society.
In developing those first considerations in the course of several addresses, and
throughout all the activities of a crowded eleven years' presidency, he maintained
the unity of the Society during the growth of Conferences in Paris, in the Pro
vinces, and in foreign countries. Our gratitude and our regard are unlimited :
if we do not give expression to our sentiments here, we refrain from doing so be
cause we desire to remain faithful to the tradition of humility which he estab
lished. Let us leave to his good works, their obscurity, and to God, the reward
ing of a life which was all spent for the good of Christian young men and in the
service of the poor of Jesus Christ."

Speaking of the objections urged against M. Bailly's decision to resign, he added:
" It was put to him that should he cease to be President of the Society he could
never cease to be its founder."

Thus Ozanam's excessive modesty, effacing himself, awards to M. Bailly here
and elsewhere, the title of founder. Those who were associated with Ozanam in
the foundation were not mistaken. We shall see how very soon they protested
unanimously and solemnly to restore fully to him the honour of a distinction
which was his.

THE FIRST MEMBERS 69

Conference of History : Felix Clave and Jules Devaux. The former
was a son of the head of an institution in the Roule suburbs, in Paris,
a recent convert from Simonism, the latter a medical student from
Normandy. They both " gladly accepted." That was the corps
d'elite : the rest of the band of young Christians stood silent and
expectant. The number of members did not exceed eight.* These,
of whom one alone Lamache was over 20 years of age, were : Frederick
Ozanam, Auguste Le Taillandier, Paul Lamache, Felix Clave, Fran£ois
Lallier, Jules Devaux. M. Bailly was at the head. There was one
other whose name is not recorded.

It is also worthy of note that " None of the seven or eight* original
members of the Society belonged socially to the aristocracy, nor even
to the wealthy middle class, whom the July Revolution had brought
into power. Their families passed a simple and honourable existence
in the liberal professions. Their personality is almost unknown.
Lamache, an excellent Professor of a Faculty in the Provinces : Lallier
the presiding Justice of the Court in the town of Sens : Le Taillandier,
a good and simple man, divided between associations of good works
and his business interests in Rouen : Devaux, a Catholic country
doctor ; Clave still more obscure. Ozanam alone stands out by his
ability, his activities and his place in the intellectual world. Does he
not equally surpass them in humility ?"

Sixty years later, Lamache, then over eighty, was asked as to the
part played by each at the beginning and replied as follows in the
journal Le Monde on the 4th August, 1892 :

" To tell the truth, not one of us, not even Ozanam, who had certainly
the greatest initiative and most ardent zeal, could be described as the
founder of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul. We were influenced
solely by the desire of finding for ourselves, for we were so weak,
mutual support in the practice of doing good. After having fought
with pen and speech in the Conference of History for the defence
of religion, we felt the need of the support, strength and con
solation which is to be found in devoting ourselves to some little works
for the sake of the love of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. It is
then God and God alone Who has done all. That is exactly why we
have every reason to hope that the Society of St. Vincent de Paul
will live."

*The number was actually seven. See Appendix.

7o FREDERICK OZANAM

All this is indeed true. But it is equally true that Ozanam was the
principal instrument whom the Almighty had chosen for this work.

The same Lamache wrote to the Abbe Ozanam on the ist July, 1888 :
" I solemnly declare on my word of honour that it was Ozanam who
first spoke to me of that Conference : that he was its soul as he had been
that of the Conference of Literature, and that, without Ozanam, the
Conference of Charity would never have come into being."

Less than three years after Ozanam 's death, fourteen surviving
members of the first Conference wished to testify to that fact by confer
ring on him, Ad perpetuam rei memoriam, the title of Founder in a written
document to which all would affix their signatures. Two of his oldest
Lyons friends, therefore, Paul Brae de la Perriere and Chaurand,
instituted a searching enquiry into the part played by Ozanam in the
foundation. They took evidence and made their report in the follow
ing joint Declaration, which appeared in the Lyons Gazette on the 25th
March, 1856 :— •

" Unwilling that the absolute accuracy of facts should be obscured, of which
we had special means of personal knowledge, and of which we had special op
portunities of hearing from the lips of the founders themselves, we testify as
follows :

" If it is true that the Society of St. Vincent de Paul has been jointly founded
by many, it is none the less true that Frederick Ozanam had a preponderating
and decisive part in that foundation. It was he who shared with M. Le Tail-
landier the idea of an Association, whose members would join the practice of
charitable works to faith : it was he who carried by his initiative the majority
of the members to adopt that act of devotedness to the poor, none of the others
having belonged to any of the previously existing charitable Associations."

" Signed on the 20th March by Messieurs F. Alday J. Arthaud, C. Bietrix, A.
Bouchacourt, Chaurand, J. Freney, J. Janmot, A. Lacour, L. Lacuna, P. de la
Perriere, E. Rieussec, all members of the first Conference in Paris in the Parish
of St. Etienne-du-Mont.

Added on the 20th and 21st March, Messieurs Aim6 Bouvier in Bourg, and
Henri Pessonneaux in Paris.

M. Devaux of Triviere (Calvados) states : " I had the honour to be one of the
seven or eight first members who formed the nucleus of the Association. It
was Professor Ozanam who procured that great happiness for me. The honour
of that foundation is his for ever." (Abbe Ozanam, Life of Frederick Ozanam,
ch. iv., p. 156. Cf. M. de Lanzac de Laborie, The Founder in the Revue
d'apolog6tique, vol. xiv. p. 730.

Much corroborative evidence is forthcoming from the correspondence
of contemporaries and fellow-workers. Lallier exclaims : " Ozanam,
to whom I owe, after God, almost any merit I possess !" Curnier
wrote to Ozanam in 1840 : "It is out of the inspiration of your
heart, that the holy association sprang, which may be destined to spread

THE FIRST MEETING 71

over the whole of France as a net-work of charity." Paul de la
Perriere wrote : " Our dear Ozanam, through his excessive humility,
has contributed his share to mis-stating the history of our foundation.
God will take full account of that unselfishness ; but He will certainly
scold him for having spoken and written the very reverse of the truth."
Can we not adopt the rather solemn conclusion of Pere Lacordaire,
who was also a witness : " Ozanam was the St. Peter of that little
guest-chamber." ?

The first meeting of the Conference of Charity took place in the
month of May, 1833, at eight o'clock in the evening, the verified date
of the foundation of the Society. The first and subsequent meetings
were held at M. Bailly's rooms in the offices of the Tribune Catholique,
18 Rue de Petit-Bourbon-Saint- Sulpice.

On taking the chair, the venerable President took good care to tell
them, " If you really wish to serve the poor and yourselves, direct your
charity to moral and spiritual, rather than material, improvement.
You will thus sanctify yourselves in the contemplation of Jesus Christ
suffering in the person of the poor." It was to His Divine service in
His person that they bound themselves in this Society.

Their dispositions were admirably generous and disinterested. A
regulation of the late Societe des Bonnes fitudes bound its members
to aid one another in their worldly careers. The young Conference
of Charity laid down a rule in contradistinction to that, to the effect
that no one was to use the Society for the advancement of any personal
interest whatever. Self-oblivion was to correspond to complete self-
abandonment.

Their only charitable resources were a bag collection made at the
meeting. One day they found, to their great surprise, some large
pieces of silver in the bag. It was M. Bailly, who found this means
of rewarding the free contributions of several members to the Tribune
Catholique, Gazette du Clerge, which was his paper. It was, therefore,
with the produce of their toil that they fed the poor.

Prayers were added, for the poor, for benefactors, for Brothers ; all
were placed under the patronage of St. Vincent de Paul. His name
was invoked at the meetings even before the Society was officially
called after him.

It was to the Sisters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul that the
Conference had recourse in order to get into touch with the poor.
The treasurer of the Conference, Jules Devaux, was deputed to

72 FREDERICK OZANAM

wait on the renowned Sister Rosalie, who was so popular in the XII
Ward and whose abounding charity was known throughout Paris.
Glad to be able to associate in her charitable ministry such men of good
will as came to consult her, she welcomed Devaux with the kindness
of a mother, encouraged the Society of the young apostles, gave them
invaluable advice, drew up for them a list of poor families to visit,
furnished them with bread and meat tickets, until such time as the
Conference would be able to issue its own.

Each Brother had a family to look after. That which fell to Ozanam 's
lot appeared to stand in moral rather than material need. The
household consisted of a mother who worked herself to the bone
to procure a living for five children, and a drunken husband who took
all that she earned, to the last farthing, to spend in drink. " Whenever
he comes in from the public house he beats us all, but that does not
happen every day," the unhappy poor woman reported conscien
tiously. She had reached the last stages of distress and despair when
Ozanam found her. He was not long in discovering that there had
not been any form of marriage, and that the unhappy woman was free
to shake off the ignoble and hateful burden. She could scarce believe
it. " It is too good to be true," she said. Ozanam had it proved
officially, freed the woman, and by means of a private collection,
procured for her the means of returning to Brittany with her two
youngest children ; the two eldest he placed in M. Bailly's workrooms.
That was truly the dual aid, moral and material, which the charitable
president had recommended. In the very first case the idea of the
future work of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul was established.

Charity infused into the hearts of these young Christians a pious
zeal. One month after his quiet inauguration, the Conference
enrolled some thirty students for a religious feast in the country.
They were invited by Ozanam to be at Nanterre for the feast
of Corpus Christi, to provide an escort for Our Lord in the pro
cession of the Most Holy Sacrament. He thus describes it to his
mother on the igth June, 1833.

The pious manifestation was at the same time a challenge : " You
know, my dear mother, that in Paris, as in Lyons, religious processions
are forbidden. But because it pleases some disturbers of the peace
to confine Catholicity to its temples in the large cities, that does not
appear to virile young Christians to be a good and sufficient reason why
they should be deprived of a most impressive religious ceremony.

THE PROCESSION AT NANTERRE 73

Therefore, some were to be found who did think of taking part in
the procession at Nanterre." Nanterre, a quiet village, the home of
St. Genevieve, patroness of Paris ! Was she not in a very special way
the patroness of those young parishioners and citizens of the glorious
Mount St. Genevieve ?

All the letter is delightful, poetic in its colouring, animated in its
tone, pulsating with friendship, deeply imbued with piety, and
addressed to a mother. It describes their departure on a fine Sunday
morning in June 'neath a cloudless sky ; the arrival at the rendez-vous
Barriere de 1'fitoile. They number thirty ! The intellectual aristoc
racy of the Conference is there : Lallier ; Lamache ; Cherruel, a
converted follower of Saint Simon ; de La Noue, a graceful poet ; Le
Jouteux ; men of Languedoc, of the Francs-Comtois, of Normandy,
above all of Lyons, mostly wearing moustaches and some five feet
eight inches in height. " The procession is passing ; the students
mingle with the peasants, join in the chorus, astonish them by our
turn out, edify them with our piety." In the village " the houses
are decorated, the paths strewn with flowers, the altars on the way
perfumed." Then the High Mass, into which the crowd surges and
extends into the street. From Nanterre, twenty-two of the boldest
set out at great speed for St. Germain-en-Laye, but not without
gathering some strawberries in the woods. There they spend " a
quarter of an hour in the Church singing Vespers," followed by a visit
to the Chateau, enjoying the panorama of its immense terrace ;
dinner at a restaurant at two shillings a head, etc. "We set out
again in groups in the cool of the evening. The moon shed her
silver beams through the trees ; it was a moment charged with delight.
We walked, filled with happiness at the thought of having rendered
the homage to God which is His due .... Night descended and we
parted. We were lost to one another in the darkness. When I reached
my rooms with two of my friends, Monday had just dawned. I know
in my heart, dear mother, how often I thought of you all during that
day, one of the most delightful in my life."

Let it not be forgotten that it was also in June, 1833, that Ozanam
and his friends had presented to Monsignor de Quelen their first peti
tion for the establishment of Conferences in Notre Dame. Piety,
Charity, Truth, those three consuming fires radiated their light, heat,
and electricity from the heart of that choice young spirit of twenty
years of age.

74 FREDERICK OZANAM

Ozanam's dwelling, that to which he returned from his pilgrimage
to Nanterre, was then at No. 7 Rue des Ores, on the sixth storey, on a
level with the dome of the Pantheon and " next to the stars," as he
himself says. He had had to give up his room in Ampere's, for M.
Jean Jacques Ampere had returned home ; but that in no wise affected
the bonds of filial veneration which united him to the great man.
The latter could no longer get on without the young man, as the
following note, dated 5th May (year not given) states : " My dear and
excellent friend, you well know that I have but a week longer to spend
in Paris, and that the translation of the Latin verses, explanatory of my
tableau for the classification of sciences, calls for more than one sitting.
By all your friendship for me, there is not one moment to lose ; you
would not wish to deprive me of that to which I attach the greatest
possible importance. I shall be more grateful to you than I can say,
and I thank you a thousand times in anticipation. — Ever most sincerely
yours, my dear and excellent friend."

The eight members of the Conference of Charity, jealous of their
new found treasure of friendship, had so little prescience, or desire, of
future development, that they kept the door of their guest-chamber
firmly closed. It was kept closed at first even to Gustave de La Noue,
a future poet, son of a magistrate in Tours, whom Ozanam described as
" one of those chosen spirits to whom God has given angel's wings."
His name was submitted and supported by Lallier ; but would not his
admission destroy the atmosphere of intimacy and simplicity of the
little family ? Ozanam definitely declared, not alone in favour of
this nomination, but in favour of the general principle of the extension
of the Society as far as it would please God to send recruits. The
door which was opened to de La Noue was never again closed. At
the close of 1833, the Association counted 20 to 25 members.

Ozanam introduced his cousin Pessonneaux and his countryman
Chaurand. The most important of the new recruits was certainly
Leon Le Prevost, the future founder of the Congregation of the Brothers
of St. Vincent de Paul. He did not come from the schools, and he
was the only one who did not. He was a man in the forties, of literary
tastes, who had been a member of Societies of Romantic Literature.
A conversation with M. Bailly informed him of the foundation and
existence of the Conference of young men. It awakened hope in his
heart and he wrote to his friend, Victor Pavie, as follows on the 2oth
August, 1833 : " There is in existence here at the moment a great

THE VIRTUE OF YOUNG HEARTS 75

movement for charity and faith. But all that is veiled from the
surrounding world by its own indifference. I am much mistaken if a
light for the world does not stream forth from these modern cata
combs." The Lord was preparing for the future in M. Le Prevost,
one of the most fruitful grafts of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul.

As M. le Prevost had said, the world was completely indifferent to
the Catholic movement which, at least, shook the resolution of those
whom it did not carry with it. The fact is that Ozanam's social
action had, even in a short time reached the mentality and altered
the moral tone of the youth of the old Latin Quarter. A contemporary
witness, and one who is not suspect, is forthcoming in the person of
Sainte-Beuve himself. After having bid adieu to the Rationalism
of the Globe, then to Saint Simonism, the Sainte-Beuve of 1833 and
1834 had his ardent sympathy attracted to the Catholic religion,
which, however, may have been literary rather than moral. He
noted, in two very remarkable articles, the religious awakening which
he witnessed and in which he was regarded by some enthusiasts as a
co-operator. "It is indeed a memorable spectacle," he wrote, " to
see amid so much unbelief and such general defection that the
chosen band of those virtuous minds does not decrease, that it recruits
and perpetuates itself, preserving the moral treasure in all its purity.
Whatever may be the form under which the Christian religious spirit is
to be reconstituted (as we hope it may be) in society, this progressive
virtue of young hearts, this faith and modesty held in reserve and in
seclusion, will push forward powerfully the time of its development."*
Without naming Ozanam, Sainte-Beuve could not indicate more
clearly the impress which Frederick had made on the young men in
Paris by devoting himself entirely to their service.

The young band continued its charitable action. It renewed its
offer to visit the poor to the clergy of Paris, with whom M. Bailly
was held in special esteem. The new parish priest of St. fitienne-du-
Mont, Pere Faudet, had no hesitation in entrusting to them the care
of some poor families in his parish, who afterwards spoke to him most
highly of the visitors.

There existed at that time in the neighbourhood of the schools a
house of correction for young criminals. The Conference received
permission from the Presiding Magistrate, M. de Belleyme, to carry

* Sainte-Beuve, Premiers Lundis ii. p. 262.

76 FREDERICK OZANAM

to the young prisoners the charity of their sympathy. Ozanam, Le
Prevost Le Taillandier, Lamache, devoted themselves for two years
this thankless apostolate until the young prisoners were transferred from
the Rue des Ores to the prison of the Madelonnettes at the other end

of Paris.

Twenty years later, Ozanam, on the edge of the grave, speaking 1
the Brothers in Leghorn— had the great consolation of pointing out
how God had been pleased to make the tiny little association of friends
the nucleus of an immense brotherhood spread over a great part of
Europe. He told the story of one of his friends, Cheruel, who was
then under the evil influence of the doctrines of Saint Simon, saying
to him with a feeling of pity, " What can you hope to accomplish ?
You are eight* poor young men, and it is with such resources that you
undertake to succour the misery of a city like Paris ! Were you indeed
many and many times more and greater, you could do but little. We,
on the other hand, are busy in the development of ideas and systems
which will reform the world and obliterate misery for ever. In one
moment we shall accomplish for humanity all that you could possibly
do in many generations."

" Now, you well know, gentlemen, what the theories which dazzle
my poor friend have come to. We, whom he pitied, instead of eight,
now number in Paris alone two thousand Brothers, who visit 5,000

families that is to say about 20,000 persons — or one fourth of the poor

whom this immense city holds ! The Conferences in France alone
number 500 ; there are others in England, Spain, Belgium, America,
and even in Jerusalem. Thus the humble beginnings have been
exalted, even as Jesus Christ was exalted from the lowly crib to the
glory of Mount Tabor. Thus God has made our Society His own^and
has seen good to spread it universally and to bless it abundantly."

*As to number see Appendix.

ANTONK) FEDERICO O2ANAM .

NAC^VE IN OVfcSTA CAS A

iC xxm AWHILE

MURAL TABLET ON THE HOUSE IN WHICH OZANAM
WAS BORN.

77

CHAPTER VII.
ORIENTATION, 1834.

FIRST ITALIAN TRIP. — LAW OR LITERATURE. — LITERARY VOCATION.— SELF-
SACRIFICE TO LAW. — CALLED TO THE BAR. — RETURN TO PARIS FOR
THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF LAWS.

A trip to Italy which Ozanam made with his parents in the
vacation of the year 1833, contributed greatly to turn his mind
definitely towards Catholic literature and history, particularly to that
of the Middle Ages. The journey left few traces in his correspondence.
It is in his Life, written by his brother, that we find evidence of the
deep and abiding influence which it had on his mind.

Madame Ozanam had an elder married sister in Florence whom
she wished to see. The doctor brought his wife and two sons with
him to visit her. Madame Ozanam remained with her sister, while the
doctor with Frederick and Alphonsus, pushed on to the north and
centre of the peninsula.

Frederick desired to see Milan above all. It was his native city and
his parents had resided there for seven years, from 1809 to 1816.
"Our brother," writes the Abbe, " was then 20 years of age. His
soul was full to overflowing of ardent enthusiasm. He saw the street,
San Pietro a I'Orto, where he had been born : the Church, Santa Maria
de servi, where he had been baptised. Kneeling at the holy font he
renewed his baptismal vows and thanked God for having made him
His child."

His father desired to take a little trip together through the plains
of Lombardy, where the Hussar captain of 1796 had served under
General Bonaparte, through Pavia, Lodi, Pizzighettone and the bridge
of Arcole which he had crossed under the enemy fire. The three
Frenchmen found France still at the citadel of Ancona, where the
military word of command in French, " En avant marche !" made
them start with glad surprise.

8 FREDERICK OZANAM

A scene of another order took place at Loretto, where Frederick is to
be found serving his brother's Mass and receiving Holy Communion from
his hand at the altar of the Santa Casa. Next follow Foligno, Umbna,
Assissi and its hills, whence picturesque processions of peasants des
cended, singing the canticles of the Addolorata and bearing her statue,
surrounded by torches: so many visions which were being deeply
impressed on the mind of the future author of the Franciscan Poets.

The young student felt himself particularly at home at Bologna.
Bologna of the Middle Ages and of the Renaissance was still to be
seen in the old cloisters of the renowned University, which was for
six centuries a centre of human and divine knowledge. During that
period its five faculties attracted the whole of Italy to the feet of forty
Professorial Chairs. Frederick recalled the names of the most dis
tinguished of its masters : Mondini in Anatomy, Pancirole in Law,
Galvani in Physics, and of a later date Mezzofante, that marvellous
linguist, who had been born in Bologna. The party spent several

days there.

A stop was made at Rome. His brother recalls Frederick s prayer
at the Confession of St. Peter, the prayer of the Apostles to tiie Divine
Master : "Adauge nobis fidem, Lord increase our faith !' He also
recalls Frederick's visit to the Vatican and his impatience in front
of the locked presses, which contained the richest treasures of the
Church's past, Latin, Greek and Oriental manuscripts, with which
he hoped to be able to spend a full day.

The father and sons had the honour of a private audience of Gregory
XVI. They received a kindly welcome ; but to the Holy Father
they were unknown strangers. It was not quite so bad with Cardinal
Fesch, who still retained his title of Archbishop of Lyons. Napoleon's
uncle received them in a salon containing a marble bust of the Emperor,
crowned with a golden laurel wreath. He entertained his visitors at
dinner. His Eminence, knowing that the doctor was one of the visit
ing physicians to the Lyons Hospital, placed a large sum in his hands
for the benefit of the patients.

The travellers hastened to return to Florence, whither a charm of
another order recalled the young pilgrim of Italian history and
literature. One meets Dante at every turn in Florence. The
devotion which is vouchsafed to the Altissimo poeta, whom the city
had exiled, is almost an apotheosis. Ozanam found evidence of it
everywhere ; his brother is right in saying, that it was during that

THIRD YEAR'S LAW COURSE 79

month's stay, that the passion and the culture were enkindled, that
later illumined his philosophy, his teaching, his entire life and, when
that life was closed, his name as author and doctor.

After such a literary, historical, and artistic treat, it was only to
be expected that Frederick should find more difficulty in resuming
the study of law, if indeed he ever had any taste for it. We shall
see him henceforth in difficulties about his future career. For six
long years he was in a state of constant perplexity, which was, in itself,
an agonising trial.

On his return from Italy he was to enter the third year's law course,
as the immediate preparation for his Licentiate examination, by which
he would become, if successful, Barrister-at-Law. The third year
was the deciding one. Before his return to Paris, his parents thought
it their duty to warn him against the temptations of literature, which
did not seem to lead to any practical end. From the very beginning
of the law course, in his first letter, Frederick hastened to renew to
his mother his promise of fidelity to his legal studies ; but he asked
for indulgence, on the ground of recreation, for certain little golden
idols which he had adored and which he could not find it in his heart
to burn. " Do not think, dearest mother, that I shall ever refuse
you the consolation of feeling that my legal studies shall not be inter
fered with. But if some recreation is to be allowed me, let me work
at literary matters, which will adorn dry jurisprudence. Thus, in
the evening with Virgil and Dante beside me, it pleases me to occasion
ally write my Italian impressions and to traverse again by myself
the ground which I covered so delightfully with you ! I shall not at
all neglect my legal studies for that. I have laid down a rule for myself
to work at least seven or eight hours a day, Sundays excepted. That
will be doing more than the majority and will be sufficient to discharge
my duty. I am attending five courses of lectures. Our Legal Debat
ing Society has opened, and I argued a rather difficult point. Un
doubtedly, it is folly for me, as I often say to myself, who am petty
and dull, to wish to write on any subject but Law, and to entertain
any other notions than those of hum-drum practice. But my nature
revolts and tells me the reverse. Thanks be to God, I am not to be
a solicitor but a Barrister, and so far a pleader. Therefore, I must
cultivate literature, the mother of eloquence."

The young law student was able to give a proof of his fidelity to
his word. He confided to his mother that, on the preceding Saturday,

8o FREDERICK OZANAM

two gentlemen had come to offer him £80, if he would devote three
or four hours a day, to collaborating with them on their newspaper.
" You can well believe that I refused. Law does not leave me four
hours for other work. Even if I had them to spare," he adds proudly,
" I should not employ them in pot-boiling journalism. However, I
recognised with joy, that if bad times should ever come, I should be
in a position to make good by my own work, the sacrifices which you
have willingly made for my sake . . . ."

On the 7th January, 1834 tne question of a career again received
attention and demanded a definite answer. " I am experiencing
what must be one of the greatest trials of my life, uncertainty of voca
tion. I did think that I should have been able to lead openly and
boldly the life of a Barrister, of a savant, and of a public man. Now,
when I am approaching the end of my legal studies, I feel that a choice
must be made between them. I must draw lots : what will be the lot ?"

If the vocation were to be singled out by aptitude and taste, Ozanam's
could not be mistaken ; he was called to the literary apostolate by
pen and by teaching.

In addition to these signs, his literary vocation was acclaimed
from without by a public tribute and a chorus of approbation,
which added temptation to his own leanings. " I am sought on all
sides," he added in the same letter ; "I am put forward, pressed into
a calling which is not Law. Because God and education have endowed
me with some liberality of mind, with some breadth of view, they will
insist on making me a kind of leader of our Catholic youth. Many
young men of great ability appreciate me in a way that I am utterly
unworthy of, men of a more mature age invite me. I have to arrange
every plan, I have to bear the burden of every difficulty. It is im
possible to hold a meeting unless I preside ; five or six magazines and
papers are asking me for articles."

Such flattery was a danger, which he recognised. " I am not
saying that out of self -pride : I know my own weakness so well.
I do indeed suffer acute pain on feeling these intoxicating fumes
rising to my head. They are sufficient to entice me away from
that profession which was, till now, the ardent desire of my parents,
and to which I myself was sufficiently inclined."

" But, on the other hand, might not that combination of circum
stances be in itself a sign of the divine will ? I do not know . . .

TRUST IN GOD 81

Thus once my Law examination is over, I know nothing of what my
future is to be. All is darkness, uncertainty, torture."

Such was the struggle which was to last a long time. The attractions
were all on one side : the desire of his family on the other. Who was
to decide ? Ozanam appealed to, and placed his fate in, the hands of
a higher will. We read on the next page : "What is the use of knowing
what we are to do, unless it be to do good ? Let us do good, let us
do all the good we can, and trust to God for the rest. The will of God
is fulfilled from day to day. The wisest and the greatest were those
who were willingly led by the hand of God. Then let us have some
little confidence in the Divine Father, without Whose Will not one
single hair falls from the head of man."

Another remark from the pen of this 20 year old moralist is astonish
ing : " What poor creatures we are ! We do not know if we shall be
alive to-morrow : yet we are anxious to know what we shall be doing
20 years hence" : adding "For some time past, but particularly since
I have seen some young people die, life appears to me in quite another
light."

Ozanam had for the first time seen a young man die under the
following circumstances :—

It occurred three months and a half before the date of the last letter.
On the 3oth December, 1833 Frederick related in a New Year's letter
to his mother that, on the preceding night and the night before,
a young student had died in the most terrible agony, a few steps from
his rooms, almost at his very door. " His cries in his delirium could
be heard in my room and in Chaurand's. How would it be possible
to be at ease, to think and to compose, when a fellow student, a young
man like myself, was twisting and turning on his bed of agony and
death ? Therefore, yesterday and the day before, we were constantly
running backwards and forwards to his room ; the image of the poor
sick patient haunted us. We had to assist at the Sacrament of Extreme
Unction and at the necessary legal formalities. Last night he was
terrible to look at, terrible to listen to. We could not make up our
minds to go to bed until one o'clock this morning. On awakening
we learned that he was dead. Alas ! I had never before seen anyone
die. One should accustom oneself to such terrible sights : it made a
very deep impression on me." It was close to the death-bed of
the youth that this New Year's letter was written " wherein wishes

82 FREDERICK OZANAM

for happiness are to be found side by side with an account of one of
the saddest spectacles on earth."

The deep impression, which the sight had made on him, was lasting.
It had the effect of directing his mind still more to the contemplation
of things eternal. So he writes : —

"Above all, since I have seen young people die, I begin to feel that
hitherto I had not given a sufficiently prominent place in my thoughts
to the invisible world, the real world. I think that I have not paid
sufficient attention to two companions who are ever walking by our
side, God and Death .... I seem to appreciate the misfortunes
of life better and I shall be all the braver to meet them. I also seem
to be less proud. What practical value would religious belief have, if
it had not that ? If religion teaches us how to live, it is to prepare
us for death."

Is this the language of a student ? Is it not rather that of an ascetic
in the cloister ? But Ozanam does not wish to be misunderstood :
" Do not think that I have become a saint or a hermit, or that I am
thinking of entering a seminary. I regret to say that I am very far
removed from the former and that I have not a vocation for the latter.
Neither think that I spend my day in company with thoughts of
death. Although I do think deeply, as I have just said, I am never
theless a fairly good companion, asking nothing better than a laugh,
and even spending a great deal of time in my own way at that pastime."

He did not lose his time, one can readily believe, in the gross or
licentious amusements of the young bloods, which, he declared, only
inspired him with contempt and disgust. A letter dated the I2th
February, thus mentions the Carnival of the Latin Quarter : " Here,
Shrove Tuesday has been a madder day than usual. One half of the
students of my house spend the night dancing, I know not where,
and returned at early morning."

He went to hear the sermons of the Abbe Lacordaire, and to those
of a young priest from Lyons, the Abbe Coeur, a young orator who
drew crowds to St. Roch. He dined at M. Ampere's on Epiphany
Sunday. He was invited to the soirees of a celebrated barrister, M.
Janvier, who desired to make his acquaintance on the strength of
one of his articles in the Revue Europeenne.

He says elsewhere : " My somewhat melancholy disposition has no
-taste for Society or for great receptions. However, as I well under
stand how useful they can be to me, I should gladly go, if the oppor-

JEAN JACQUES, JUNIOR 83

tunity offered. But who would bother with a young fellow like me,
devoid of the elegant and charming manners that Society requires ?
Moreover, there are so many knocking at the doors of the salons !
It gives them enough to do to open to callers, without going out into
the highways and the byeways to seek out the blind and the halt."

In Ampere's home, Ozanam met at table on Twelfth Night Jean
Jacques, junior, thirteen years older than he. He had a facile, brilliant,
and highly cultivated mind, very widely read, of an all but universal
erudition, an historian, a poet, a dramatist, a distinguished author,
a world wide traveller, a brilliant conversationalist, an attractive
professor. M. Ampere, junior, formerly conference master at the
ficole Norm ale, became a Professor in the College de France in 1834,
where he delivered a course of lectures on Scandanavian poetry. He
was about to enter the Institute of France while waiting to take his
place in the French Academy. The nature of his works on Northern
Literature attracted Ozanam especially, as the young savant was but
34 years of age. On the other hand, the distance which separated their
two minds was still greater than the disparity in years.

German philosophy had left its mark on the traveller. Jean Jacques'
religion scarcely went farther than a spiritualism which respected
religious belief : it was at most a free and easy Christianity. His
habits as well as his inclinations kept him in the world of the Parisian
salons, where Madame Recamier was queen and Chateaubriand king.
Daily communication, and, above all, daily contact with such a charm
ing Parisian constituted a dangerous quicksand for an open-hearted
young man who was easily influenced by everything that characterised
genius and glory. Ozanam's refined tact and sense of moral delicacy
enabled him to avoid the danger. What is noticeable in their first corres
pondence is a respectful reserve, mingled with admiration and gratitude
on the part of the younger, and on the part of the elder an affectionate
and condescending interest which watched the welfare of the student.
It continued to prove an amiable and powerful protection for the young
professor. Later, their hearts were opened to one another, understood
one another, were fused into a friendship equally tender on both sides,
but more profoundly religious on Ozanam's part. He occupied himself
before God in praying for this great elder, whose salvation he desired.
We shall find Ozanam reminding him of those matters gently, in the
accents of an apostle's heart appealing to the heart of a brother.

The Conferences of the Abbe Lacordaire, which Ozanam mentioned

84 FREDERICK OZANAM

as his chief delight in the Lent of 1834, were the last which that orator
gave in Stanislaus College. Ozanam wrote of him in the same
letter : "All our Lenten preachers are put in the shade by the Abbe
f Lacordaire, who holds conferences every Sunday in Stanislaus College.
The young men are crowding to them. A number of students from
the Polytechnic, many more from the ficole Normale, distinguished
personages, members of Parliament, professors, savants, mingle in
the audience. At the close of each lecture they depart, amazed at
what is said in such simple straightforward and touching language.
In truth, he is not of the present-day school of preachers, but rather
of that of the Fathers of the Church, such as St. Augustine and St.
Chrysostom."

We must see what opinion is held of the world by this soul, from the
lofty heights whereon it dwells, from the paths it traverses " between
God and Death," for it is the history of a soul that we are writing. It
is in a long and important letter to his mother that he unfolds it,
under date i6th May, 1834.

"As we grow up," he writes, "and as we see the world more closely,
we are grieved to find it hostile to every ideal and to every sentiment
that is dear to us. The more closely we come into contact with men,
the more we discover pride and selfishness ; pride among savants, folly
among people of the world, intemperance among the masses. When
one has been reared in a pious family, such a sight fills the heart with
disgust and indignation, and one is tempted to protest and to condemn.
But the Gospel forbids that ; it places before us the duty of devoting
ourselves entirely to the service of that same Society that repels and
despises us."

Social action and social service, instead of protests and maledictions,
such is indeed his resolution. At the date of this letter, i6th May,
Ozanam had just attained his majority in the eyes of the State and the
Church. He was 21 years of age on the 23rd April. He was now a man
and felt the duty and the need of being a soldier. " I am of an age
to fast," he writes to his mother, "and to-morrow I fast with the
Church. Am I not also of an age to suffer something and to fight as
she does ?" And he will fight. His letter continues : "Charged with
bigotry by free-thinking companions and with liberality of thought
and rashness by elders, amid controversies and disputes where charity
is not, and scandal abounds, surrounded by political parties who
would willingly drag us in their mire as we have attained unto the

LAW OR LITERATURE? 85

vote, that, my dearest mother, is a sad existence. But I do not
grumble, for I do not forget that it is a trial which Providence will
have me pass through, in order that I may afterwards serve better."

But what form was that service to take ? This time he avoided
the painful subject. "Perhaps I am wrong in wishing to be a man,
because, dearest mother, I am still, in many respects, a child, am I not ?
But I cannot forget that this year will see the end of my legal education,
and that in the month of August I can be, if I wish, a Barrister-at-
Law !"

It was, indeed, less than three months later that his legal studies
would finish. The promise which he had made to his mother, to give
up all his time to his studies, had been kept. He admits a few oc
casional interludes which he allowed himself, an article on China,
two on India, in the Revue Europeenne : he admits that much, he accuses
and excuses himself somewhat ; his hand had been forced in the matter.
So all other occupations were " henceforward to take a secondary
place." He had obeyed.

But at what a sacrifice ! What a change of life ! "In reality,
dearest mama, I do not understand this year how I live at all. All
my last year's habits have been so completely altered that I do not
know where I am. No more scientific study, no more conferences
of philosophy, no more animated discussions such as we had last year
in our literary society, no more of these consecutive pieces of work
in which my spirit delighted. All my little meetings are no more :
except for some few paltry articles in periodicals and some good lec
tures, I have done nothing but Law But ennui has seized

on me and I am consumed with anxiety for my examinations. . . .
If the sacrifice has done my legal studies some good, I believe, on the
other hand, that it has cost me much of my intellectual life." His
reflections and impressions as regards himself and the world are summed
up in this phrase : " That is what is keenly felt at my age. Those sad
truths wake me from my dreams and leave me as grave and gloomy
as a man of 40."

"A man of 40 !" Alas ! Ozanam was to rest but one brief moment
on that pinnacle. God, who willed that he should be perfected in a
short time, had matured him before the autumn of life. The majority
of 21 years, which this young man had attained, was not merely one
of age, but of mind, of will, of character, of heart. Ozanam at 21
years of age looked out from on high on the world and judged it : he

86 FREDERICK OZANAM

looked at life and seized its reality : he looked death in the face
and it is " between Death and God that he will walk in this life" : he
gazed on the Cross, and knew how to submit himself entirely to the
will of those, who represented for him the will of God. He was master
of himself, and could exalt himself by humility of heart. With un
trammelled heart and steady gaze fixed on a single end, we behold
this young man ascend towards those sacred heights, where the man
is transfigured and appears in our eyes ever more and more a child
of God !

All the while the childlike candour which made him so tender a
son and so sympathetic a friend did not leave him.

The last and the longest letter which we shall find addressed to
his mother, had, unknown to himself, all the sadness and the tender
ness of farewell. Did not this mother complain that her son was
abandoning her, that he did not now unbosom himself to her as for
merly, that she was reduced to the point of imagining that she had a
son ? The fact being that Lyons was closed to all correspondence
by the state of Civil War. " But," he replied to her, " how I did
long, dearest mama, to run to you, to embrace you, to caress you !"

He was able on this occasion to " unfold his heart to her." In
eight full pages he recalled his life as a child, their home life, " her
gentle soothing words, when as a schoolboy he worked at the table
beside her : how in 6th class, he asked her advice and help in his exer
cises : in Rhetoric how he read to her his French compositions : the
warnings and occasional scoldings of papa, his walks with her, her
stories of the war, etc., etc."

Then at the end of these sweet memories his hopes : " I believe,
dearest mother, that with the help of God a day will come, when I
shall be able to repay you in filial piety and in happiness some part
of the care, strength, and health that you expended on me." He
spoke to her also of his devotions and of Pere Marduel as the "only
man who in kindness and prudence could hope to replace father and
mother."- " Thus, dearest mother, I cherish the hope, notwithstanding
all my defects and all my weakness, that I may not prove too unworthy
of my parents, that I may become a zealous Christian, a serious citizen
and a virtuous man. Adieu, dearest mother. Do not fear, dear mama,
that I shall abandon you."

A letter written at one o'clock in the morning on the 2ist July,
addressed to a friend from Lyons, mentioned that he was working at

VISIT TO LAMARTINE 87

law at the moment. In that year, at that very hour, he was in
handigrips with the texts for his fourth examination. " Therefore, good
night, dear friend. Before a month is out we shall be able to talk of
many things that the pen cannot do justice to !"

Before the I5th August Frederick returned to Lyons. He had been
called to the Bar. "la Barrister 1" he wrote to his mother. "Can
you imagine that ? After all, the title of Barrister in itself is not
much." What other title was he then thinking of adding ?

The young Barrister found Lyons on his return crowded with soldiers,
flanked on all sides with guns, bearing in its streets and on its ramparts
the traces of the April insurrection, and suffering in its business from
the disastrous after effects of civil war. On the other hand, he found
all the joys of family life re-united under the paternal roof, of which he
speaks enthusiastically. He also met in Lyons his college companions
in Law and in the Conference, de La Perriere, Dufieux, Chaurand,
Bietrix, and others whom he saw daily at their home or at his own.

The outstanding feature and the event of his holidays in 1834 was a
visit to Lamartine accompanied by Dufieux, who, being a friend of
the poet, had obtained permission to introduce his friend. Lamartine
was living in his castle of Saint Point in the mountains, four miles
from Macon, where he exercised a civilising and beneficent influence.
Ozanam wrote to Lallier : "M. de Lamartine brought us both into
his bungalow where we conversed together for close on two hours.
He unfolded his noble political ideas, his beautiful literary theories :
he made many enquiries about the youth of the schools and the spirit
which animated them, and he appeared to me to be full of hope for
the future. ... At table, and in the drawing-room he was extremely
amiable. He pressed us more than once to spend a week with him.
As that was not possible, he made me promise to go and see him
when he would be in Paris the coming winter. We dined and spent
the night with him. The next day he himself showed us his two other
houses, Milly and Monceaux . . . ."

Ozanam admits being altogether under the influence of the captivat
ing Lamartine, who, in his 43rd year, was then at the meridian of his
genius, his beauty, his eloquence and his glory.

" What would you have ? The sight of that superior being fascin
ated me : notwithstanding the fact that, before visiting him, I had
taken the precaution of reading a certain chapter in the Imitation,
which put me on my guard against human respect."

88 FREDERICK OZANAM

We need not therefore be astonished to read as follows, soon after
wards : "Oh ! all my literary ambition, all my uncertainty, have re
turned stronger than ever, the desire to do good inextricably mingled
with the desire to gain glory : but with that, the consciousness of my
nothingness, the true appreciation of my social position and the necessity
that I am under of working for my livelihood." What was he going to
do, what was he going to become, on the re-opening of the schools ?
"My uncertainty is not ended. I have consulted my brother. He
is of opinion that it is not yet time to cut the Gordian knot. He
insists on my promising to follow Law and Literature at the same
time."

Everything was calling him back to Paris ; absence from there was
even producing a sort of homesickness : " Left without news, letters,
or papers from Paris, I am already beginning to feel the monotony
of provincial life."

What was calling him back to Paris more than anything else was
the memory of the friends whom he had left there. No one was dearer
to his heart than Lallier, as the following ardent letter shows : " Even
now, as I am enjoying my mother's embraces, my elder brother's
example and advice, my younger brother's affection, I do not cease
to regret my comrades in Paris, the charity and genial kindness of
M. Bailly, the long evenings that we passed in one another's company :
above all in yours, my dear friend, who, in advice and example, proved
such a sincere and Christian friend. You know well that, of the young
men whom I have known during my exile in the capital, you are the
one I liked best. It is you whom I have rescued when you lay in
hiding in your little room, a prey to gloomy and despondent ideas.
It is you, in your turn, who so often inspired me with holy and salu
tary thoughts, who consoled me in my grief and encouraged me when
in doubt. Oh ! We miss you, all miss you greatly."

Moreover, what attracted Ozanam to Paris was his work of charity,
his young conference, his poor : " Here, I have no charitable works
to look after. I am living like a good-for-nothing. How I need your
prayers ! Do not forget me, miserable as I am." . . . But he was
recruiting young members for his little Society. " We shall bring
back with us to Paris a band of good Lyons students. They will
add to our meetings, although, truth to tell, I no longer look on the
Conference of History but as a recruiting ground for the Conference
of Charity."

A NETWORK OF CHARITY 89

In this frame of mind, it was a great source of joy for him to receive
in the month of November, a letter from his former comrade, Leonce
Curnier, from Nimes, informing him that, following his example, he
was trying to found a Conference of Charity in that city. This friend
said to him : " I was indeed sincere in promising you when leaving
to endeavour to found in Nimes a Society on the same lines as that
which you had founded in Paris. You expressed a wish to see France
enveloped in a network of charity, and you enkindled in my soul some
thing of that burning zeal with which you are animated. On my
arrival here I communicated to a venerable priest the project which
owed its inspiration to you. When I told him what you had said to
me and what I myself had seen, tears flowed from his eyes : ' Ah ! we
must not despair of the future of France/ he said, ' as long as there
are in our generation young men who are capable of giving such good
example.' '

Ozanam replied at once : " Your letter overwhelmed me with joy,
I read it to some of my friends in the Society, who are on holidays here.
I also wrote immediately to those members who are in Paris, informing,
them of your good news. But let me first congratulate you on the good
work which you have commenced, as well as on what you look forward
to doing in the future. God and the poor will bless you. We, whom
you have surpassed, shall be glad and proud to have such a brother.
Our desire is then accomplished : you are the first echo of our feeble
voice : others will probably soon respond. How great then will be
the merit of our little Parisian Society, that it has furnished the model
for, and given the impetus to others ! A single thread suffices to
commence to weave."

What he missed particularly in Lyons and "\\hat especially attracted
him to Paris was the intellectual life, the public lectures, the scientific
studies of all kinds which can be had in perfection only in the capital :
41 Here on vacation I live like a Boetian and I scarcely do any work."

He was to return to Paris with his father's consent. Such was the
great news that he had for Lallier on the I5th October. " I have
leave from my father to return to Paris for two years. I shall take
out my Degree of Doctor of Laws quietly, and shall study Oriental
languages at the same time. But, no more magazine articles : an
occasional contribution to the Conference (of History), if there is one,
or for the Revue Europeenne, if it still exists. My future I leave in the
hands of Providence. I shall accept willingly whatever place He

90 FREDERICK OZANAM

will be pleased to assign me to, however lowly it may be. It will be
always noble, if it be filled worthily."

Ozanam arrived in Paris in the middle of November, 1834. He came
to finish his legal and professional studies. Nor was he without thought
of another order of studies, the bold desire of which breaks through the
following lines to his mother : " I must express to you, dear mama, my
fixed desire at all times to do anything in my power to fulfil my duty.
Before I return to you this year, I shall sit for my examination of
Doctor of Laws. I hope to pass with Honours. If I may not do some
thing in addition to that ; if I may not devote myself as much as I
should wish to other and more congenial studies ; if I may not have
two strings to my bow ; if I am to use only the strong G string and neglect
the brilliant and harmonious E string, I shall be resigned. I shall
suffer as a consequence ; I shall be deprived of a source of pleasure
to which I looked forward. But at least I shall not have been found
wanting in my duty."

Duty, Duty in sacrifice : do not the last words of that letter sum
up the state of his mind during those three years of study and uncer
tainty ?

CHAPTER VIII.
THE YOUNG SOUL OF THE APOSTLE

SUB-DIVISION OF THE CONFERENCE. — PATRON, ST. VINCENT DE PAUL. —
AIM OF THE SOCIETY, THROUGH AND FOR YOUTH. — SALVATION OF
SOULS.— JESUS CHRIST IN THE POOR. — "DEVOTION EVEN UNTO
MARTYRDOM." — DEGREE IN ARTS AND DOCTOR OF LAWS.

1835

Towards the end of November, 1834 we find Ozanam " installed in a
very pretty little room with only one drawback, that it is on the sixth
storey. But it has good air and a view of the gardens." He is not
alone : he has for a companion " a very amiable young man who is
well informed and has sound common sense." It was Auguste le
Taillandier, his fellow founder of the Conference of Charity. " The
only fault I have to find with him is, that he is not from Lyons ; so
even while living so much together we have alas ! the prospect of
parting in a year, perhaps for ever. In very truth, we are high and
puissant lords."

Ozanam was able to write two years later to his former chamber
companion : "Alas ! my dear friend, we were living but two short
years ago as brothers, our two lives were but as one. How sweet is
the memory of those times !"

The academic year 1834-5 was, for those two friends and brothers
in St. Vincent de Paul, distinguished by a rapid development of the
Society in Paris. We left it with 20 or 25 members at the end of its
first year, 1833. In 1834, when we pick up its threads again, the per
fume of Charity has begun to spread beyond the bounds of the
Conference. One of the Poor Law administrators of the XII
Ward, M. Vollot, asked for the co-operation of the Brothers in the
visitation of his poor. They gave it to him nobly. On the ist of
February, 1834 the Society took over this work, which it continued
and maintained in subsequent years.

92 FREDERICK OZANAM

On the 4th February, in the same year, they added, for the first
time, at each meeting the invocation of our holy Patron, "St. Vincent
de Paul, pray for us." About the same time was adopted, as the prin
cipal feast of the Society, that of the same Saint, celebrated on the
19th July. Ozanam was insistent that the Conference should also
be placed under the patronage of the Most Holy Virgin. The Hail
Mary was then added to the usual prayers, and it was decided to cele
brate the Feast of the Immaculate Conception with special devotion.

On the I2th April the members of the Conference were gathered
together in the chapel of the Lazarists, in the Rue de Sevres, to venerate
the relics of St. Vincent de Paul, which had been just restored thither.
They had lain for four years in the College of Roye, in Picardy, where
they had been concealed since the July Revolution.

The veneration of " the father of his country," as he had been named
by his generation, had grown more and more in these young hearts.
About this time a few of the Brothers, with Ozanam at their head,
decided to celebrate his feast in the little suburban parish of Clichy,
of which Pere Vincent had been Parish Priest up to 1612. These
young zealots of charity did not merely regard themselves as his
parishioners by desire, but as his heirs, his children ; it was as such
that they sought the honour of carrying his shrine in the procession.
41 Vincent de Paul was not the man," wrote Ozanam, " to build on
sand or for the moment. The great souls who draw nigh unto God
have something of the gift of prophecy. Let us then not hesitate to
believe that St. Vincent had a vision of the evils and the needs of our
times. He is still making provision ; like all great founders he never
ceases to have his spiritual posterity alive and active amid the ruins
of the past."

" In our Patron we shall honour a father. Who knows but that one
day we shall see the children of our old age shelter in the bosom of a
widespreading Society, over whose birth we have watched ? That
will be the regeneration, the rising flood, which, like the waters of a
beneficent river, will renew the face of our own poor country and fer
tilise its soil."

Summing up his thoughts in these few words, Ozanam declared that
"A patron is an ideal whom we must place before us, a superior type
whom we must seek to realise, a life which must be continued, a model
on earth and a protector in Heaven."

During the holidays of the same year, 1834, the membership of the

SUB-DIVISION 93

Conference had become sufficiently large to render suspension of the
visitation of the poor in their homes unnecessary. Ozanam said,
"Gentlemen, let us not forget that the poor have no holidays."
Absent members arranged to have their places supplied by members-
living in Paris. The most devoted of these substitutes was Le Prevost,
who was steadily gaining influence in the Society.

At the first meeting after his return from Lyons, Ozanam acquainted
his brother members of his correspondence with M. Curnier a propos
of the foundation of a Conference in Nimes. " I have had to read a
great part of your letter," he informed him, " to our colleagues, with
the Parish Priest in the chair on that occasion. The impression
which it made on them can only be expressed in the words of one of
them : " In truth, this is the Charity of the Early Ages of Christianity."

Ozanam advised his Nimes friend " of new arrangements, which
the increase in the number of members, now numbering one hundred,
would necessitate."- " It is probable that we shall have to sub
divide our Conference into several, which will all hold a periodical
general meeting in common." It had become a necessity. The house
on the Place de la Vieille-Estrapade had become too small. The
meetings had become rather noisy and confused, the duration too
short for the reports of the visitation of the poor, and for the necessary
explanation of their needs. Had not the moment in fact arrived for
the enlarging of the circle of action by the establishment of a second
Conference, to be followed in all probability by several others ? It
was a serious question, a tremendous consideration. To subdivide,
was that not to separate, to break up ? No, it was to grow. The
guest-chamber was taken by assault by the youthful recruits, who
demanded the opening of the doors, or the liberty to swarm.

Ozanam proposed on the i6th December that the Conference should
subdivide into three sections, distinct, but linked together. " It
raised such a violent storm," relates Claudius Lavergne, who was pre
sent, " that M. Bailly, the President, instead of appearing to doze,
as was his practice on such occasions, at once adjourned the discussion
for a week, and appointed a sub-committee of three members from
each side to examine and report on the proposal." While Ozanam's
proposition was supported by Lallier and Arthaud, others like Le
Taillandier and Paul de la Perriere opposed it or demanded its adjourn
ment, through love of that unity which had cemented dear and precious
friendships. " M. Bailly remained the impartial judge, but it was

94 FREDERICK OZANAM

sufficiently clear that the proposition did not find favour with him."
It was, therefore, not from him that the inspiration and the conception
of a boundless Society of St. Vincent de Paul came.

" The Brother," he continues, " who hurled this brand of discord
into their midst was nevertheless the meekest, most peaceful and most
thoughtful among them. It is only necessary to mention the name
of Le Prevost de Preville, one of the latest recruits, it is true, but the
one who, after Ozanam, got the best hearing. I formed part of the
opposition, and when our orator, Paul de la Peniere, developed the
arguments with which he was to rout Le Prevost, I did not find his
address by any means unanswerable. The stormy meeting of the 23rd
resulted in an adjournment."

The supporters of sub-division received very valuable encourage
ment on the 24th from the powerful advocacy of the Abbe Combalot.
He celebrated midnight Mass in the Carmelite Church. While joining
in the friendly midnight meal he urged with eloquence and with in
sistence on the advantage and advisability of sub-division. It was
also the decided opinion and ardent desire of Sister Rosalie. The
debate on Ozanam 's proposition was resumed by Arthaud on the 30 th
December, and appeared, as a matter of urgency, on the agenda of
the following day.

The 3 ist December was the day of the great struggle.

Every member was early in his seat in the hall of the Place de 1'
Estrapade. The meeting was larger and more full of animation than
ever. The discussion was very lively. Paul de la Perriere, opening
the opposition, was more eloquent and more insistent than usual.
Le Taillandier was seen to weep ; the idea of separation, but still more
that of dissension, rent his heart. Ozanam spoke and unfolded a vast
perspective of good to be accomplished by general extension. It
became then the thesis of the joy and benefit of Christian friendship,
at issue with the incommensurable ambition of charity.

One could no longer make oneself heard, and minds were as excited
as it was possible to be. They had come to the night of the 3ist of
December, 1834. Night was advancing, midnight bells had just rung
out ushering in a new day and a New Year. M. Bailly besought the
young orators to end a discussion which had already lasted too long.
But how ? Ozanam arose and went over to La Peniere. They both
embraced as Brothers with mutual good wishes for the New Year.
All applauded, followed their example, and left the hall happy and

PERSONAL SANCTIFICATION 95

united. They handed over to the Board of the Conference the difficult
task of satisfying everyone.

Several forms of compromise were tried and dropped. For some
time partial Conferences held separate meetings in two rooms of the
same old house of the Bonnes £tudes. Then one was transferred to
the parish of St. Sulpice, under the presidency of M. Gossin. Almost
at the very same time two other branches sprang up : the Conference
of St. Philippe du Roule, which was due to the efforts of M. Clave,
and the Abb6 Maret, the subsequent Bishop of Sura, Vicar of the
Parish : and the Conference of Notre Dame de Bonne-Nouvelle. Lest
the sub-division should loosen the original bond of unity, care was
taken to lay down a rule for the holding of general meetings, in which
the members met in common and drank in together the true spirit
of the Society. Those meetings were presided over by M. Bailly,
Father Bailly, the guardian of the Society's traditions, and were ani
mated by the spirit of Frederick Ozanam, who continued to be the soul
of the scattered family.

According as the Society was developing in numbers and importance,
a similar growth and enlightenment as to its aims was taking place
in the docile mind of the young man. The Holy Spirit was moulding
him in the fashion of founders of religious institutions in the Church.

Thus, it is to be noted that, instead of making the Society a work
of mere philantrophy, such as it might appear to the world, or even a
work of active religious propaganda, Ozanam had in view at first no
thing but the personal sanctification of the Brothers, and more
especially the moral and religious preservation of the young men in
the schools. He wrote as follows to Curnier on the 4th November,
1834 : " In Paris we are but birds of passage, removed for a time from
the home nest. Unbelief, that vulture of thought, hovers over us,
before swooping. We are poor young minds reared within the bosom
of the Church, surrounded by an impious and sensual crowd. We are
sons of Catholic mothers, entering singly into new and perfidious
surroundings, wherein irreligion seeks to enlist us. Well, the first
matter of importance is that these feeble birds of passage must have
a protecting shelter : those young minds must have a rallying centre
for the time of their exile : that those Catholic mothers may have
less tears to shed, and that their sons may return to them as they left
them."

" It is therefore of importance," he added, " to form, for young

96 FREDERICK OZANAM

students from the provinces a Catholic association for mutual encourage
ment, where friendship, support, and edification would be found ; wherein
the family life of the home would be, in some small measure, repro
duced : wherein the older members would welcome the new pilgrims
from the provinces and would offer them moral support and friendly
hospitality. Now the strongest bond of true friensdhip is charity,
and the exercise of charity is the practice of good works."

Ozanam continues that if the Society should endeavour to come
to the corporal assistance of the poor, it is at spiritual aid and the sal
vation of the soul that it should principally aim. Alms would be but
the key by which truth and grace should enter. Ozanam sees in the
parable of the Good Samaritan the lay mission and apostolate to the
masses of the people, who have been plundered and left for dead by
spiritual thieves and moral assassins. " The nursing of the sick
patient is proposed to us, lay Samaritans. Let us try it. Perhaps
he will fear us less. Let us endeavour to pour balm into his wounds :
let us whisper words of consolation and peace into his ear. After
wards, when his eyes shall have been opened, we shall lead him to those
who are the guardians and the doctors of souls. They are our hosts,
as it were, in the pilgrimage here below, for they give our souls the
sacred bread to nourish them, the hope of a better world to shelter
them." f

Ozanam had a still more lofty view : more lofty even than the con
sideration of the moral and eternal salvation of the young man by the
practice of charity : more lofty even than the consideration of moral
and material aid for the poor. Ozanam had the supernatural view
of Jesus Christ, made poor for the love of us, and living in our midst
in the person of the poor. In its divine aim it is exactly the theological
virtue of Charity.

Ozanam had a friend from childhood, his First Communion comrade,
Louis Janmot, the distinguished Lyons painter, the pupil of M. Ingres,
who at this time, 1836, was completing an art tour in Italy. The
student envied him the happiness of being able to visit Assisi and the
Umbrian country, where he would find many traces of the seraphic
Francis, " the madman from love," who became a mendicant for the
sake of Jesus Christ. Thereupon Ozanam appealed to a heart worthy
of his own : " Will not we too, my dear friend, do something to resemble
the saints we love ? Will we be satisfied to lament the barrenness
of the present time, when each bears in his heart a germ of holiness,

EVEN TO MARTYRDOM 97

which a simple desire would be sufficient to develop ? If we do
not know how to love God as they did, it is certainly because we see
God with the eyes of faith alone, and our faith is so weak ! But the
poor, we see with eyes of the flesh. They are present. We can put
our fingers and our hands into their wounds, the marks of the crown
of thorns are plainly visible on their heads. There is no place for
unbelief there. We should fall at their feet and say to them with the
Apostle, Tu es Dominus et Deus meus I You are our masters, we shall
be your servants ; you are the visible image of the God whom we do
not see, but Whom we love in loving you."

Finally, to what degree must we love Jesus Christ in the person of
the poor ? Ozanam states, to the point of self-sacrifice, to that point
of the sublime proof of love, which he calls by its true name in reply
to Leonce Curnier. — "Even to martyrdom."- " The world has grown
cold, it is for us Catholics to rekindle the vital fire which had been
extinguished. It is for us to inaugurate the era of the martyrs, for
it is a martyrdom possible to every Christian. To give one's life for
God and for one's brothers, to give one's life in sacrifice, is to be a
martyr. It is indifferent whether the sacrifice be consummated at
one moment, or whether slowly consuming, it fills the altar night and
day with sweet perfume. To be a martyr is to give back to heaven
all that one has received, wealth, life, our whole soul. It is in our
power to make this offering, this sacrifice. It is for us to select the
altar at which we shall dedicate it ; the divinity to whom we shall
consecrate youth and life ; the temple where we shall meet again :
at the feet of the idol of egotism, or in the sanctuary of God and Human-

ity-"

To be an apostle, a martyr, that was his dream. M. Maxime de
Montrond recalls an evening when the Right Rev. Monsignor Dupuch,
Bishop of Algeria, had come to visit the Conference of St. Sulpice :
" Every member of the Conference was present on that day. The
venerable M. Bailly was presiding by the side of the Abbe Collin,
Parish Priest of St. Sulpice. The young orphans had been brought
in from St. Vincent de Paul's. The Monsignor shot fiery arrows from
his apostle's heart that pierced ours. I was beside Ozanam. He and
I were electrified by those words. When we arose at the end of an
hour, having received the blessing of that man of God, Ozanam gripped
my hand with great emotion, uttering words that still ring hi my ears :
" What are we doing here ? Do you not also desire to set out with

98 FREDERICK OZANAM

this apostle and help him to plant the Cross in Africa ? Oh ! how
paltry and how petty we are compared to him, how poor our deeds
compared to what he will do !" Is not continental France a country
of missions ?

Now, when it is fully understood that he who spoke and wrote these
sublime thoughts had realised them at the age of 21 years ; that he
had dedicated to God and to God's poor, his strength, his health,
life itself before his majority : that he had thus sacrificed himself,
whole and entire, knowingly and voluntarily; will not the title of
martyr be conferred upon him ? Shall we be astonished at finding
a saint revealed according as we proceed in the examination of his
soul ?

Ozanam resolved definitely to sanctify himself through sacrifice
at the foot of the altar of Notre Dame de Fourviere. He wrote
from Lyons : " I have made a resolution of more complete moral reform
during my remaining two years in the capital. I placed my intentions
under the auspices of our Divine Mother, trusting for the rest to my
good will !" Whence had the inspiration come to him ? He un-
burthened himself to Dufieux. He is to be seen, first in his self-
humiliation, then in his resurrection unto the virility and sanctity of
life, approaching what St. Paul calls " the fulness of age in Christ."

" Three months have passed," he confessed, " since I made
that resolution at Fourviere, and here I stand with empty hands. I am
suffering from a spiritual shyness that I do not seem to be able to shake
off. My conscience is not sparing me. With the desire to do good
and much good on one side, and an incredible irresolution on the other
that prevents me from doing anything, I pass days in bitter reproaches
for unfulfilled resolutions, and in the formation of new resolutions
which I shall not fulfil either."

Striking the balance of the account, on one side the graces received,
and on the other the constant failures to respond thereto, he cries
out "Alas ! my dear Dufieux, I can indeed say this, since it is said
for the greater glory of God, it is probable that no one has received
more generous inspirations, nor experienced more holy emotions,
nor more noble ambition than I. There is not one single virtue, there
is not one moral good work to which I have not been called by the
mysterious voice from within. There is not a worthy affection, the
charm of which I have not felt : there is not any form of friendship,
nor of precious intimate relationship, that I have not enjoyed ; en-

HUMILITY 99

couragement in every shape has been vouchsafed me ; there is not a
zephyr that blows, which has not breathed over me to unfold blossoms.
There does not exist perhaps in the vineyard of the Eternal Father,
a single vine to which He has given so much care and attention and
of which could be said with more justice : What could I have done for My
vine that I have not done ? — And I, wretched plant, I have not unfolded
my petals to the divine breathing ; I have not driven my roots into
the good soil ; I have become dried up and withered. I recognised
God's gift ; I felt the living waters bathe my lips and I opened them
not. I remained a passive creature, I wrapped myself up in a cowardly
inertia. I am incapable of willing or of acting, and I feel accumulating
on my head the crushing responsibility of favours that I daily ignore."

That strength of God, which piety alone gives and nourishes, was
necessary, if he were again to get on his feet and to become master
of himself. "But strength," he says, " that gift from the Holy Ghost
so necessary to me who, in the midst of perils, is to walk without
stumbling, is not in me. I am drifting hither and thither,
a prey to every caprice of the imagination. At times piety seems to
me a yoke, prayer a lip-habit, Christian practices the last branch to
which I cling to save myself from falling into the abyss, but the fruit of
which I cannot gather. I see my contemporaries advancing with head
erect. I stand still in despair of being able to follow them, and I spend
in idle lament the time that I should devote to marching forward."

That religious confidence was begot in the presence of " Him Who
loves us both and in Whom our separated souls can be united and con
verse together." It is perfected at the foot of His Altar and at His
Holy Table : " I waited until I should feel brighter to write to you.
Yesterday I had the great happiness of receiving Him, Who is the
strength of the weak and the Doctor of souls. To-day I write to you
with sincere regret for the past and with good resolutions for the future.
Oh ! I beg of you to pray, that these latter may not prove vain."

The thoughts of Ozanam which we have just read were the fruits
of the Lent of 1835. It was the memorable season when the Lenten
Conferences of the Dominican, the Abbe Lacordaire, were definitely in
augurated. He spoke of the necessity of a Church which teaches.
" Why," asked the orator after the few introductory remarks, " why
:has this temple been chosen for these sermons ? My dear brethren,
tell me what do you ask of me ? Truth ! Do you not possess it
then, etc."

I00 FREDERICK OZANAM

Ozanam was present. We know the steps which he had taken to
have those Lenten addresses instituted, and we can understand with
what great joy he welcomed their authoritative inauguration and
brilliant success. At the close of the first, Monsignor Quelen, the
Archbishop, arose and thanked " the man whom God had dowered
with piety and eloquence and with, what is still greater, that virtue
which marks the priest, viz., obedience. He called him his loyal and
faithful friend, the consolation and joy of his heart."

Ozanam was enthusiastic. One Sunday morning, the I5th March,
he cut short a letter to his father, because at half-past twelve o'clock
he had to be at Notre Dame, to hear the Abbe Lacordaire, who was
delivering to an immense congregation the series of sermons, which
he had commenced the year before in the Stanislaus College. "The
discourses are magnificent. They are attended by the most distinguish
ed people in the capital, M. de Lamartine, M. Berryer, etc. Literateurs,
scientists, and numbers of students are observed there. One com
plete isle is reserved for men and holds from five to six thousand.

Ozanam had not only his place at these addresses, but also his work.
His letter to his father adds : " I have to review those lectures for
the Univers. I receive one pound for each ; the series will consist
of eight. If the purse does not gain much, the spirit will, at all events,
not lose." Nor would charity for the poor lose either.

The story is told how Ozanam managed to draw to Notre Dame his
companions at the schools, particularly those whom he knew to stand
most in need. Several alleged the difficulty of finding room : "Come,
I shall keep a place for you." In order to do that he had to come very
early, sometimes two hours before the time of starting, reserving seats
against all and sundry until his grateful guests should arrive.

Lallier and La Pierriere took notes by Ozanam's side for his articles.
The visions and impressions which the friend's pen reproduced on
the I4th March, 1835 were also theirs: "When the congregation, en
tranced by the accents of the young priest, knelt at the close of the
sermon to receive the Papal Benediction, when the bells of Notre
Dame pealed forth, the portals opened, and that mighty congrega
tion, rich in truth, poured out into the capital, we seemed to be
assisting, not at the resurrection of Catholicity, for it never dies,
but at the religious resurrection of society."

In the reports which follow, Ozanam describes the congregation as
becoming more crowded on each occasion, and Lacordaire more

ASSOCIATION OF FINE ARTS 101

splendid. He remarked among other notabilities present, Chateau
briand, Saint Marc-Girardin, Ballanche, Pastor Athanase Coquerel.

Enthusiasm increased with every discourse. The last was " superior
in eloquence to anything I had ever heard. There is something that
heartens the spirit."

Ozanam desired to see our Holy Mother Church, recognised and
proclaimed Queen of Art as well as of Science and Literature, extend
ing her sceptre over every branch of human thought. About that
time his friend de la Noue wrote, that he had just formed an Associa
tion of Artists and asked him to become Vice- President of it. Ozanam
declined the honour, urging, as an excuse, his numerous occupations,
but accepted ordinary membership with the intention of emphasizing
the spirit of Christianity in the world of Artists and of Poets, " with
whom he desires to keep in touch."

He also had conceived the plan of a similar society " with a view
to glorifying religion by the Fine Arts, and regenerating the Fine Arts
through religion. The power of association is mighty, for it is the
power of love ! That idea has taken complete and permanent
possession of me for the last five years." It would not be the Fine
Arts alone that should be enrolled, but also Literature and Science :
not only those who teach or study them, but also those who patronise
and love them. Then there would be a Society to assist and encourage
the Fine Arts by means of competitions and prizes : a benevolent
society for talent in distress : a society for Catholic propaganda among
the intellectual elite of the country. What else? "When a more
liberal-minded legislation would allow, the establishment oj Colleges,
Academies, Catholic Universities ! Ah ! I can never hope to realize
that beautiful dream myself, but I always hope that God will
accomplish it, if men only co-operate."

The young apostle is very insistent that the proposed Association
should be really a society of Christians, of loyal and practical Catholics,
faithful to the teaching and to the direction of the Church. He ques
tions his friend : " Will it be religious, in the rather liberal meaning
of the word, or in the sense which is actively Christian and positively
orthodox ? Let us be convinced, my dear friend, that orthodoxy is
the nerve centre, the vital essence, of every Catholic society ; it is from
faith that it will derive life and strength."

Just as all his ambition was for the Church, and as he rejoiced in
all her triumphs, so the same apostle trembled and shuddered at her

102 FREDERICK OZANAM

trials and her sorrows. It was a great grief to him to witness " the
progress which the rationalist propaganda is making among students,
and the deplorable defection of some who but lately were our glory."
Reading the Voyage en Orient of M. de Lamartine, he quickly discovered
the poison of scepticism mixed with the honey of poetry in the enchant
ing goblet. " Through optimism and a false tolerance for the Koran
the poet has evidently strayed from the path of orthodoxy," he writes.
But Ozanam believed that the evil was not without remedy, and that
time would obliterate the impurities in the Oriental ideas and images.
But his grief is bitter, and he cries out : " It is that pride of intellect
which has already dethroned the Abbe de Lamennais from the lofty
elevation whereon his genius and his faith had placed him. Now
we are to tremble for the virginal muse of Lamartine."

The faith of the young Christian finds expression in accents of virile
grief : " Such things are sad," he says, " but they are true. We
Catholics are punished, because we have placed more reliance on the
genius of our great men than on the power of God. We are punished
because we have taken pride in their person, because we have repelled
with some disdain the attacks of unbelief by pointing to the galaxy
of our philosophers and poets, rather than to the eternal cross ! We
are punished because we have leaned upon the reeds of intellect ;
they have broken in our hands."

Then he adds in a noble outburst : " Henceforward we must
seek help from higher sourses. A slender twig will not suffice to
traverse life with ; we need wings, the wings that support angels,
faith and charity. The empty places must be filled. Grace must
guide us in place of genius, which has failed us. We must have courage,
we must persevere, we must love unto death, we must fight to the end.
Let us not count on an easy victory ; God makes that difficult for us
that our crowns may be more glorious."

Even should genius fail, industry would not. Taken up with
Law and Literature, his share of the toil was to be double,
but twofold also was to be his armour for the morrow's fight. True,
his health was suffering. His correspondence to his mother discloses
the fact that owing to frequent and serious attacks his doctor,
Dr. Durnerin, forbade all unnecessary study* He therefore aban-

*Dr. Durnerin, the Christian father of the admirable Mademoiselle TheVese
iQft1?611^ fo"nd^ of the Society of " The Friends of the Poor" in Paris 1847-
1905. Her life has been written

AUTHOR OR BARRISTER 103

doned the course of Oriental Languages, to confine himself to
the immediate preparation for his legal and literary examinations,
which were the objective of the hard but fruitful scholastic year,
1834-35. "As a matter of fact," he says, not without some little
irritation, "what will it matter to my future client that his counsel
knows Hebrew and Sanscrit ? It is better to grow musty studying
the Code, for to-morrow will see me harnessed to the Law, even while
meditating with Seneca on the contempt of riches." He consents,
however, to write an introduction for the Revue Etiropeenne, which was
then rising phoenix-like from its ashes. But he had definitely bidden
adieu to the Conference of History. " The poor little meetings are
dying, and it is not I alas ! who will revive them."

It is therefore with the representative men of the Bar on one side,
and of contemporary literature on the other, that we shall find him
in touch, simultaneously, if not equally. On the 8th February,
1835, he informed his mother that on her recommendation he paid
his New Year's call on M. de Lamartine : " He welcomed me very
graciously. It seems that the verses which I sent him gave him genuine
pleasure. He said many flattering things to me, which however gave
me pain, because they are not deserved. He also predicted a brilliant
future for me, which does not appear to be under way yet. He made
a note of my address, to invite me to dine with him. He also asked
me to come occasionally to his literary Saturday evenings. I shall
certainly go."

In the same letter, he mentioned a short visit to M. Sauzet from
Lyons, future President of the Chamber of Deputies, who insisted on
seeing in his young townsman the hope of the Chamber and of the
Bar. On the I5th March he wrote to his father : "Sauzet delivered
a speech yesterday in the Chamber of Deputies which was received
with tumultous applause, and which is compared to the best addresses
of Berry er."

In which of the paths, that of author or barrister, of poet or of
politician, will the future of the young student lie ?

Literature first bore off the palm in the year 1835. One might have
foretold it. A letter dated the 2nd May to M. Velay contained some
unexpected news : " My dear Velay, here is my excuse for not writing.
I had lately taken the notion to reduce to its simplest and most posi
tive form, all the literature that I had learned in my three years' stay
here. To fix my knowledge in parchment and to take the Degree in

I04 FREDERICK OZANAM

Arts, I had to look up my Burnouf from end to end and to convince
myself that I had never done any Greek. I had first to run in review
quite a number of authors, then the whole course of history, several
parts of which were strange enough to me. This work occupied me a
good month, at the end of which I got this welcome Degree. It will
serve as a step to the Degree of Doctor of Laws next year. Then I shall,
please God, be Doctor of Laws and Doctor of Literature."

These were then " the two strings to his bow," to which his letters
to his mother referred, in order to serve the divine King in a double
capacity, wherever He would be pleased to call His soldier.

His joy at his daring academic success was, however, clouded by
the grave condition of his mother's health. His tenderness for his
beloved mother seemed to increase during those days. He thanked
her on the 24th February, in the following terms, for the blessing
which she had sent him : " That mother's blessing is the most precious
and most beautiful present which you could possibly make me. . .
I knelt down, my dear mama, and asked Him Who endowed you with
that blessing, to confirm it, and never to let me be unworthy of it. I
prayed for energy and steadiness of purpose ; I formed the most
fervent resolutions, and I have actually begun to do better for the
last three days." . . . Then, as they were just at Shrovetide, he
related to her the little feasts which the Lyons students gave one
another in their rooms, Arthaud, Chaurand, Bietrix, La Perriere,
Janmot, Ballofet, Falconnet, the two Pessonneaux : " M. Bailly, like
a kind father, joined occasionally in our frolics."

He finished his letter as a son with a message for his father : " Will
you please tell father a very flattering piece of news. M.. Andral
delivered one of his recent lectures in the medical course altogether
on papa's work, History of Epidemics," which he spoke of in the highest
possible terms. — Good-bye, mama, love me as I shall always love you. —
Your Son."

She loved and blessed him as if she were not to be with him for long,
a fact of which Frederick knew nothing. His father only informed
him when it was late, and then only partially. The son complains :
" Mama has been ill, even seriously ill, and I am not told. Matters
are taking place at home in which I am deeply interested and I know

nothing of them ! You have done this to spare me anxiety, %

but it is not right. My poor mother has had so much anxiety on my
account, that I must now have it for her, and I must suffer when she

THE LAW EXAMINATION 105

suffers. I, her son, must be told all, the more so, my dear father, that
it is useless to dissemble : the heart divines."

From this time forward he had to hasten : " I am restless, my dearest
mama ; this uneasiness makes me desirous of standing my law examina
tion on the 25th July, in order to be by your side before the end of
the month. Then, dear mother, I shall fling my arms round your
neck, I shall try to bring you joy, that sovereign medicine for the
soul, which can cure even the ills of the body."

The work of preparation was of the hardest. He had to make up
by closer study the month which he had spent in obtaining the literary
degree. He knew " that at the first examination for degree, half the
candidates fail. He had counted as usual on the review of the last
few days." He worked night and day. With his head in a whirl,
his teeth set, his face swollen, he held on : "I had a mustard bath for
my feet, and so remained from eleven at night to one o'clock in the
morning. I had to work still later during the last few nights, and
took care to have recourse to warm footbaths to keep the blood from
my head." When the day of the examination arrived, the all too
energetic young man was but a shadow of himself.

The result was good but not brilliant. ' The professors have done
me the honour to ask me very difficult questions." But what would
his father say ? "I admit I fear that. Yet, my good father has
promised that he will not blame me. He knows well that I have done
my very best to please him. In very truth, I love you well but I
fear you more. Well, even so, I reckon on a good reception from
you !" He signed the letter "Your son, who starts in two hours and
who will be with you in three days."

io6

CHAPTER IX.
LYONS AND PARIS

Two English Chancellors. — THE RULE OF THE SOCIETY OF ST.
VINCENT DE PAUL. — DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF LAWS. — ANGUISH AS TO-
CHOICE OF CAREER. — FAREWELLS TO PARIS, TO THE SOCIETY, AND TO-
HIS FRIENDS.— AMPERE'S DEATH.

1835-36.

The period extending from the beginning of the holidays in 1835
to those in 1836, which we are now about to touch on, covers Ozanam 's
last year of legal studies and was crowned by the Degree of Doctor of
Laws. This year was spent partly in Lyons and partly in Paris.
In Lyons his holidays were occupied with an important work entitled
Two English Chancellors. In Paris he was actively engaged in con
junction with Lallier, in the drawing-up of the Rule of the Society of
St. Vincent de Paul. In the Summer he bade farewell to Paris, and
left for Lyons to take up a career which he entered on with misgivings.
We saw Ozanam about the middle of the month of August, 1835,
hastening to Lyons to be near his mother ; she would not be cured
until his arrival. The journey, which then occupied two days and a
night, was marked by a public incident which was calculated to display
his manly Christian character.

In the interior of the same coach were a German, his wife and family.
They were journeying to Ma£on and would, therefore, unfortunately,
be his companions for nearly all the journey. At one of the stops a
pretty girl appeared at the door of a house and the German seized the
opportunity to utter in bad French a coarse jest to the young man
seated opposite. Frederick, regarding himself as offended, silenced
him in a few words. When night came the man proceeded to discuss the
same topic with his own family in German, mocking the ' goody-goodi-
ness' of the young Frenchman. Ozanam appeared to be asleep in.

ARRIVAL IN LYONS 107

his corner ; but he had understood. He prepared his reply and waited
till morning. Then looking the man straight in the face, he addressed
him directly in a few chosen phrases in good German to the effect that
a French gentleman would not use such expressions in a stage coach,
and that a father of a family should blush with shame to use them
before his wife and children.

The man was quite abashed and covered with embarrassment. The
incident finally wound up with expressions of regard and esteem for
Frederick. Nor was that all. All the stage-coach passengers alighted
at Ma^on, and the German invited the student to breakfast with him.
It was the Feast of the Assumption, and Ozanam declined with thanks.
He went instead to the nearest Church to receive Holy Communion
on his mother's feast day ! It was yet another cause for astonishment
to hear Ozanam, on being brushed against by a little Italian scrubbed
boy, speak to the little stranger in his own tongue. This young French
gentleman then spoke three languages !

It is some 30 miles from Magon to Lyons. There was no diligence
running on that particular day, so Ozanam went part of the journey
on foot, and got a lift for the rest of the way. He arrived at the Rue

Pisay at eight o'clock in the evening " They were all there for

mama's feast, and were disappointed at my late arrival. Father,
mother, brothers, cousins, male and female, were all there ; I leave you
to picture for yourself the joy of our meeting."

Madame Ozanam, though somewhat improved, still bore disquieting
traces of her illness : ultra sensitiveness, feverish energy in the practice
of good works, angelic virtue and benevolence in a never-ending
struggle with a weakly and nervous constitution. " I am very uneasy
about her for the coming winter," wrote Frederick to Lallier. " If
you, my dear friend, have two places for me in your prayers, give one
to my mother, and the other to me. If you have but one, let my mother
have it. To pray for her is to pray for me. It may be that my salva
tion is bound up with her preservation in this world."

The City of Lyons, which Ozanam had found in the preceding
vacation still bleeding from the wounds caused by the insurrection
of 1834, did not present any more cheerful appearance on his return
from Paris in August 1835. The dread of cholera hovered over the
city. " Advancing towards our gates," he wrote on the 23rd of
September, " the dreaded plague ascended the Rhone to within ten
miles of our city, driving before it multitudes of refugees, whose frenzied

io8 FREDERICK OZANAM

accounts added to the terror of our impressionable inhabitants. While
the brutish crowd, on the one hand, prepared for riots and looting, a
large religious congregation beseiged Notre Dame de Fourviere, and
knelt in the open air upon the bare ground to chant the penitential
psalms."

He adds on this occasion, " God has for the second time glorified
His Blessed Mother and consoled our poor city ; the hand which
threatened to crush us was, for the second time, extended to bless us.
The name of Notre Dame de Fourviere no longer brings a sneer to
the lips of the impious man, who cannot help thinking that, possibly
he owes his life to her protection."

The whole vacation felt the influence of that state of things : " The
dread of cholera has chilled everybody," he wrote to Paris. " We
are isolated and barbarous : no friendly dinners, no picnics in the
country." Ozanam indulged in a trip, which was also a pilgrimage, to
great and holy places. For the rest he occupied himself with writing,
which was to result in his first work on history and religious literature.
Such were the holidays of 1835.

The only outstanding event was, therefore, an excursion into the
Dauphiny, where he visited the more beautiful spots with his brother,
the priest, " his angel guardian," as he calls him ! The trip was
completed with the ascent of the Chartreuse Peak and a stay at the
grand monastery for two days and a night. I pass by his enthusias
tic description of " those cloud-capt heights and fathomless abysses,"
the remains of gigantic upheavals which are a symbol grander than
the spectacle itself. " A frightful disorder and tremendous upheaval
to reach Heaven — efforts that are powerless but unceasing — is not
that the image of life and of the human soul ?"

What then did he see in this solitude ? " Nature, which he is at a
loss to describe, and men, whom he cannot imitate. What did the
monastery show him ? Sixty eight monks, elevated above the thoughts
and desires of human beings ; a lonely nest where souls grow in holiness
under the shelter of religion to wing their way to Heaven."

There, above matters and men, the saving prayer is heard. " I was
present at matins at eleven o'clock at night in their solitary chapel.
I listened to that choir of sixty innocent voices, and thought of all the
crime that was being committed in our great cities at that hour. I
asked myself if there were really sufficient expiation to blot out such
stains, and I recalled the just men, for whose sake God would have

TWO ENGLISH CHANCELLORS 109

granted safety to Sodom. Hope then returned to my heart bringing
with it sweet memories which will ever dwell with me and mayhap help
to encourage me in the days of darkness. It may even be, that a
virtuous inspiration will spring from it which will one day make me
better."

When the fortnight's trip was finished, Ozanam did not again quit
his feeble mother. It was, as he himself tells us, by her side, and
under her eyes that he wrote the moral, historical, and critical essay
entitled, Two English Chancellors. This work appeared in single
articles in the Revue Europeenne, pending publication in a permanent
form, which was to be the revelation of the workman in his first great
work. From this point of view it is worthy of attention.

Literature had claimed him for her own after his Licentiateship
in Law and prior to his Doctorate. Not literature for its own sake,
but literature devoted to the demonstration of the moral ascendancy
of Christianity over the human conscience. If this beautiful historical
work shows the prentice-hand of an eloquent scholar, it is already the
work of a powerful apologist, who demonstrates the influence of religion
by the contrast of two portraits ; these are juxtaposed and establish
the thesis by contrast. The thesis represents Christianity as
the centre from which Art, History, Literature and Science are
illuminated. The introduction places this thought before us in one
of his most beautiful passages :

" We, who were born in the bosom of the Church, and who have been
nourished by its teaching, find its traces at all times and in all places.
We love the humanity of filial love, but in it we see and cherish the
Church above all, through whom and by whom, all that there is in
humanity is made pure and great. We plunge freely into the regions
of science, and we inevitably find some one of those fundamental
religious truths, which we had been taught when we were young. We
fix our gaze on those monuments which were raised throughout the
centuries by the hand of man ; and ever in their foundations we find
some medal struck with the divine effigy. We cannot breathe the
air of the world without drinking in somewhat of the perfume of our
sanctuaries. Amid the din of clashing systems and of struggling
powers, our ears retain the distant murmuring of sacred chants. When
we stand at the foot of the statues of great men, our thoughts follow
their natural bent, leading to the altars of our saints."

Such is the disposition of Ozanam's mind and heart when, coming

no FREDERICK OZANAM

in the course of his historical studies to the beginning of the
century, he found himself face to face with one of the greatest geniuses
of modern times, Bacon, Lord Verulam, Chancellor of England
under Elizabeth and James I. But this great mind presents a debased
and abject character, a slave to his own fortune, which cast him into
depths of ignomony that cause the historian to blush. Ozanam is
shocked, and retreating into the Middle Ages, finds another English
Chancellor under Henry II., Thomas a Becket, Archbishop of Canter
bury. There is a courtier, transformed by religion, and the grace of
his sacred position, into a man of God, faithful unto heroism, sublime
unto martyrdom. In these two characters Ozanam finds the repre
sentation of the rationalist and of the Christian principle. In the
one, reason enthroned in its highest powers of understanding, in the
other, faith exposed to the rudest and most violent persecution. He
then said to himself : " Let us contrast these two, a great man and a
saint, to learn in which is human nature elevated to the highest degree
and crowned with the greatest glory. We shall thus investigate
which of the two principles, philosophy or religion, is the more fruitful
in virtue and in greatness." Such is the monument which the young
conscript of scarce 22 years proposes to raise to the glory of the Gospel.
Ozanam notes in his correspondence the difficulties and the amount
of research which this study in contrasts imposed on the conscientious
historian. But he also lets us know amid what tender loving care
he found his relaxation. " There were entire days when nothing
was clear," he writes, " and when, unable to write a single line,
I spent hours and hours with my mother and my little brother,
playing at being once more a child, and thus forgetting my difficult
trade of writing."

He found another refuge at the feet of another mother, the Virgin
of Fourviere, to whom the great English martyr was also devoted.
" Having gone to Fourviere twice, I knelt before the altar of St. Thomas
of Canterbury. I asked him, with all the little fervour that I could
command, to help me in a task undertaken in his glory." The pro
scribed saint had dwelt in Lyons during the period of his misfortunes,
and had described it as follows : " I have heard it said that men on
the banks of the river Saone are freer than elsewhere ! I shall go there
on foot with one of my own people. Perhaps when they see our
affliction, they will take pity on us and will give us the necessaries
of life, until God shall have provided for us."

THOMAS A BECKET AND BACON in

That beautiful appreciation of those two characters concludes with
these lines : " You have now before you two great figures. Rationalism
has made one, Catholicism the other. It is for you to see, to which
of the two systems you wish to deliver your soul." All is contained in
the following prayer, a strophe to the immortality of the hero who was
sacrificed for the Christian Law : " For six hundred years, one hundred
millions of Catholics venerate with respect and love the memory of
that Bishop of other times. When, in solemn supplication, we repeat
the long Litany of Saints then, Oh ! Thomas of Canterbury ! you also
we invoke, and you we salute with the most beautiful title in the
language of men ; we call you martyr !"

When, in the following Spring, M. de Coux, former editor of the
Revue Europeenne, published in book form this first production of his
young collaborator, he hesitated to praise too warmly one so near to
him. " But," he adds, " we must in justice state that serious study,
original research, a spirit instinct with Catholic truth will be found
herein. That is sufficient in our opinion to ensure the sympathy of
the critical public, whom we are addressing, for the young author, who
is willing to devote himself to the serious and responsible task of
defending religion, and who brings to that work all the talent he
possesses."

That was more praise than Ozanam wished. When he regarded the
volume, he found it trivial in comparison with a charitable work which
Paul de la Perriere had brought to completion. He told himself, to
his own confusion, that a good deed was worth more than a good book.
He wrote as follows : " While I was dragging myself over these poor
pages, de la Perriere finished a Church in his suburb and had it blessed.
He thus obtained the benefits of religious instruction and the Holy
Sacrifice for several hundred people, who now gain for him in return
numberless graces. How much better actions are than words, and how
I am ashamed of my role of scribbler, which I fill so badly ! However,
I hope that all my work will not be barren. It cannot be altogether
for nothing that I have come into close contact with such a great
saint, and entered in a measure into his mind and life. I hope that
those recollections will not be altogether useless to me in the battle
of life."

After four months and a half of industrious holidays, Ozanam
mentioned his return to Paris in the following lines to de La Noue,
dated the 23rd November, 1835 : " I am to set out in a week. This

II2 FREDERICK OZANAM

year's stay will be my last and my time will be wholly occupied in
hard preparation for the Degrees of Doctor of Laws and Doctor of
Literature .... But we shall not be strangers to one another. For
that I rely upon the genius of friendship. Good-bye my dear poet ;
remember me in your thoughts, in your flights of fancy, and in your

prayers."

What was calling him to Paris was undoubtedly the study necessary
for the development of his thesis for the Degree of Doctor of Laws,
but it was above and beyond all tiis own special work, the work of
charity, which he had so lately declared to take precedence over that
of science.

In order the better to work, he wished to live during 1835-36 with
Lallier, Secretary-General of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, just
as he had done the preceding year with Le Taillandier, who was now
back in Rouen. He wrote to Lallier as follows on the i6th November :
" I expect to leave Lyons any time between the 25th inst. and the
3rd prox. In Paris I shall have to find furnished lodgings. You
will have to do the same. Could we not rent a little flat together ?
Wait for me if it is at all possible. Loneliness would be fatal to my
peace of mind : my imagination tyrannises over me. When alone, I
always seem to have some demon by my side. In the company of
Christian friends I feel at once the fulfilment of the promise of Him
who has undertaken to be wherever they are gathered together in His
Name. We would live as brothers ; I would ask you to mortify my
untameable self-love ; we should endeavour to grow better together.
We would be able to link up our works of charity, to develop our
plans for the future. We would mutually support one another in
our dejection, console one another in our sadness and affliction."

Since they had come to understand each other better, Ozanam and
Lallier found themselves more and more in accord. Many circum
stances tended to bring them together. Lallier was but a year younger
than Ozanam, and his father also was a doctor in Joigny. One of his
uncles was the president of a legal tribunal in the city ; another uncle,
a priest, professor in the same place, afterwards Rector of the Royal
College of Orleans, later Canon, and Vicar General of Sens, had become
renowned as a lecturer on the Humanities in the University. He was
also well known as an episcopal administrator among the clergy.
Francis, their nephew, was, like Ozanam, a thorough-going Christian.
Two friends of his, Lamache and de la Perriere thus describe him :

THE RULE OF THE SOCIETY 113

•" Ozanam represented daring initiative, precocious knowledge, en
gaging and winning frankness, the charm of beautiful thoughts and
elevated sentiments. He was easily with us, primus inter pares.
Lallier came second ; he had a strong character, extreme kindness,
sound common sense, more reason than imagination, more solidity
than brillancy. His demeanour was reserved, even cold, but beneath it
he had a warm heart, melting in close friendship into extreme tender
ness. He was as serious as a judge, and this characteristic joined to a
simple and affectionate cordiality gained for him among us the title
of Father Lallier."

It had come to this with Ozanam, that he could not get on without
him, longing for his approval and his affection. The same letter
admits that with humility : " How egotistical I am ! You know
how often in Paris, I practically begged for your praise, evoking ex
pressions of your treasured friendship. For example, you told me
one evening that you would pray for me by name. Those words are
engraven on my heart . . . . "

" We shall link up our Associations of Charity," Ozanam had written.
It was a serious moment for the Society of St. Vincent de Paul. The
four Conferences in Paris, St. fitienne du Mont, St. Sulpice, St.
Philippe-du-Roule, Notre-Dame de Bonne Nouvelle, were all in com
plete touch with each other. Then the Society extended beyond
Paris. We have seen M. Leonce Curnier establishing it in Nimes.
The young painter, Janmot had carried it to Rome, where Claudius
Lavergne joined him. Ozanam had himself sown the first seed in
Lyons soil, which we shall see blooming amid thorns and bearing
abundant fruit. The general expansion of the Society in the different
cities of France could already be anticipated ; the young Christian
students, who were members of Parisian Conferences, were bringing
them back with them. The time had come to link them together
into what Ozanam called a fraternal Confederation, which should
have its Rule, its Law, and which would at the same time, maintain
Paris, whence it had sprung, as the centre of the family circle.

The Rule was drafted with piety and prudence by Messieurs Bailly
and Lallier, who worked at it during the vacation of 1835. M. Bailly
placed it before the First General Meeting of Brothers, which took
place on the 2ist February, 1836. He drew attention to the fact,
that the Rule was based, not on theory, but on the actual practice of
the already existing Conferences, and that it had been agreed upon by

U4 FREDERICK OZANAM

them before the subdivision of the first Conference took place. The
Introduction, written by him, is altogether inspired by the sermons
and writings of St. Vincent de Paul. It is instinct with the spirit of
the humility, unity, and charity that ought to reign among Brothers,
as well as with a sense of duty to ecclesiastical authority. The law
giver of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul is St. Vincent de Paul
himself.

The Rule proper, drawn up by Lallier, Secretary General, bears date
in the Manual of the Society, December, 1835, exactly the time when
Ozanam had returned to Paris and resumed his place beside his friend.
His hand is not visible anywhere, but can his spirit have been a
stranger to it ? It opens thus : " Here, at last, is the commencement
of the written constitution for which we have so long wished." It
closes thus : " Courage, then ! Together or separated, near or far,
let us love one another ; let us love and serve the poor. Let us love
this little Society, which has made us known to one another, which
has placed us on the path of a more charitable and more Christian
life. Let us love our practice, let us love our Rule : if we keep it
faithfully it will keep us and our Society. Much evil is being done,
said a holy priest, let us do some little good ! Oh ! how glad we shall
be that we did not leave empty the years of our youth. Youth is a
field which must be cultivated, let us look around and gather the ears
that lie at our feet. This sheaf will be a provision for our whole life,
blessed as it will have been by Our Lord."

Ozanam's printed letters for the year 1836 are only three. He
excuses himself on the ground of the double work of this final year.
He declares himself so overwhelmed, that he almost despairs of ac
complishing it. " Time recedes and leaves me stranded. It is in
sufficient to satisfy the just demands of study and of friendship."

He wrote the same year to his younger brother : " You are beginning
to know, my dear brother, how hard the business of a young man is.
Formerly it was war, to-day it is examination. There are, without
question, periods of work which are as hard as any campaign. For
five months in 1836-37 I worked regularly, not counting lectures, ten,
and in the last month fourteen to fifteen hours a day. Prudence is
necessary to avoid injuring one's health, but the constitution gets
used to it by degrees." Did Ozanam ever exercise that ' Prudence '
in his own regard ?

On the 3oth April, 1836, Ozanam maintained with honour his

DOCTOR OF LAWS 115

two theses for the Degree of Doctor of Laws. The subjects were, in
Roman Law De Interdictis, in French Law De la Prescription a I effet
d'acquerir. Very few students in those days went as far as the
Degree of Doctor, which alone conferred: the privilege of lecturing
advanced classes in a Faculty. Ozanam was, one day, to benefit
by that.

He did not give way to ecstasies at his success. What was ordinarily
the first rung of the ladder for others, was for him the hangman's noose.
As Doctor of Laws, he belonged definitely henceforward to the Bar,
to the Court, to the career from which he shrank. It was for it that
he would be obliged to renounce for ever, his profession, his apostolate
of Literature : Literature to which his childhood and his youth had been
dedicated, to which he had given so many solemn pledges, and which
in return had brought him such noble and holy pleasure. Writing
for God, speaking for God ! I regard the day after the examination
for the Degree of Doctor of Laws as one of the saddest days in Ozanam's
life.

Listen to his terror at his return to Lyons : " I am leaving Paris.
What shall I do in Lyons ? They wish me to plead. Am I then to
be confined within the narrow limits of a court ? That will be very
hard on me. My dear friend, is this distaste for Law mere pride ? Is
this love for higher study a vocation ? Is it an inspiration from
on high or a temptation from below ? Is all that I have written and
•done for the last five years, reason or madness ?"

It is of God Himself that he asks humbly as a child :" My dear friend,
pray that God may deign to answer the questions which I ask of Him
daily ! I seem to be resigned to His holy will, no matter what humble
part, what painful task He assigns to me. But only that it be known
to me ! That I may no longer be, as I have been for the last five years,
divided against myself, that is to say, weak, powerless and useless."

At other times he accuses himself. Doctor, he is indeed : but is he
as learned as he ought to be and could have been ? Barrister, Jurist,
he will be. But will he occupy the rank he could have taken ? " Ah !"
he confessed about this time, " if I had devoted exclusively to the
study of Law, the gifts which God has given me, and the five years
stay in Paris which my parents have afforded me, I should have been
.able to win a place at the Bar, which I cannot now hope to attain.
All those thoughts agitate and torment me. The necessity, in which
I find myself placed, of taking up a definite career, oppresses me. I

ii6 FREDERICK OZANAM

am afraid of causing bitter disappointment to my dear parents, and
you know how well they deserve to be loved !"

As to the possibility of dabbling in Literature as a pastime, that is
not to be thought of. " No," he protests, " my nature, my mind, my
heart revolt against that arrangement. The passion kindled by
Literature would have all my life, all my soul to itself alone. Thus
I am face to face with the choice of abandoning one or other career,
as I cannot adopt both. But how can I make up my mind to bid fare
well to Literature, that exacting muse, who is making me pay so dearly
for companionship ?

Then again, if he feared Lyons, he regretted Paris. Instead of leav
ing immediately after his Law Degree, he remained on up to the
vacation. That was primarily for the necessary preparation for the
Degree of Doctor of Literature, which was the only way out of the
cruel impasse. He was also retained by all kinds of bonds, of
religion, of friendship, and of charity. Thus, he had written earlier:
" I desire, undoubtedly, to be with my parents. It seems to me that
they need me ; I feel that I need them. Notwithstanding that, it
will be hard on me, it will be cruel for me, to leave the place of my
exile, to bid farewell to those who have made it tolerable for me, and
to forego the fraternal gatherings that nothing can replace."

Those fraternal gatherings were the meetings of the Society of St.
Vincent de Paul, its feasts and pilgrimages. He again invited one of
his friends, Gustave de La Noue, living at Auteuil, to another such
meeting at Nanterre on the nth June : " I shall see you in a few days.
In the meantime a group of your friends will meet on next Sunday, a
mile and a half from your place, to take part in the procession of
Nanterre. Come and join them, my dear La Noue. Come and
pass a few moments of joy and love with us. Come and cast the
incense of your thoughts in the path of Our Lord and Saviour."

Lallier was not to be with him : " You know," he wrote, " how hard
it will be on me not to have you with me this year. Let our thoughts
often fly to each other, let us write, advise and sustain each other.
I think that you may stand in need of it for you are human : but my
need will be still greater .... Good-bye, my dear Lallier ! May it
not be long till I see you again !"

There was also in that city his dearest and most honoured master,
who kept him there. He passed away about that time. The world-
renowned Andre Marie Ampere, whom Ozanam called his second

DEATH OF AMPERE

father, departed this life in Marseilles on the loth June, at the age of
sixty 3'ears. It was the eve of the day on which Ozanam had dis
patched his pious letter to de La None.

Ozanam 's consolation lay in the fact that he had assisted that great
man with his pen to the very end, as the following affectionate letter,
dated the loth September, 1835, testifies : " My excellent friend,"
Ampere wrote him, "how shall I adequately express my gratitude to
you for your article to which I attach inestimable value ? My grati
tude shall last as long as I live."

The death of the great Christian was precious in the sight of God.
To those who enquired after his health, he replied : " My health !
My health ! What a question to ask ! Nothing is of importance
now but eternal truth !" Ozanam tendered his homage on the tomb
of his fatherly friend ; in the first place to that religious spirit
which had made him at once so good and so great ! "It was beautiful
to examine closely what Christianity had wrought in his great soul,
begetting there a wonderful simplicity, the modesty of a genius which
knew the value of everything but itself ; an affable and engaging charity;
benevolence to all, but especially to young men." . . . Ozanam again
addressed him, and for the last time, as his second father.

He grieved long for him, in sad company with his son whom he re
minded in a letter a year later : " Dear Sir and friend, I remember well
one day that you visited me in my little apartment. Our eyes were
wet with tears. I told you of my eagerness to return to my own
family, and profit by the time that Heaven would deign to grant to
my aged parents. With your experience before me, I shuddered at
the thought of a similar misfortune."

We find Frederick in Lyons with his parents at the end of the month
of July, 1836. That city entered into possession of her child for four
years. During that period he often turned his eyes and his thoughts
to that sweet " exile in Paris," which had given him, he said, the five
fairest and happiest years in his life. About two years after their close
he drew the following charming picture in a letter to Lallier, dated I7th
May, 1838 : " You cannot think, my dear friend, what an inexpres
sible charm the little scenes of our student's life possess for me, when
I see them idealised in the twilight of the past. The evening gather
ings at M. Gerbet's, where we first met and which had an element
of the mystic. The historical and philosophical debates into which we
introduced such keenness, and in which our success was freely pooled.

!i8 FREDERICK OZANAM

The little charitable gatherings in the Rue du Petit-Bourbon-Saint-
Sulpice, the first of which I insist, was held in the month of May, no
matter what Lamache says. The famous evening when after being
present at the breaking-up of the Academy of St. Hyacinth, we re
turned and drew up the petition to Monsignor de Quelen. The un
expected visit which we paid in fear and trembling to the Archbishop,
where we made a bold assault and whence we departed so excited.
The first addresses of Lacordaire at Stanislaus College ; his triumph
at Notre Dame, in which we had some share. The editing of the
Revue Europeenne in M. Bailly's rooms. The vicissitudes of the
Society of St. Vincent de Paul. The famous meeting at the end of
December, 1834, where the question of sub-division was discussed,
at which Le Taillandier wept, and La Perriere and I handled each
other roughly in debate and which terminated in a shake hands and
best wishes for the New Year. Then the Christmas midnight feast,
the Corpus Christi processions ; the honey-suckle which bloomed so
beautifully on the Nanterre road ; the relics of St. Vincent de Paul
borne on our shoulders to Clichy. Then, again, so many kind actions
done to one another ; the outpouring of the heart so often to one's
brother ; so much sound advice, so much good example ; the tears shed
in secret at the foot of the altar, when we found ourselves together.
Lastly, the walks through the lilac trees of the Luxembourg, or on
the square of St. fitienne du Mont, when the light of the moon
silhouetted the three great buildings !"

" All that became for me, my dear friend, the background of my
thoughts ; it shed a dim religious light on my present existence. Thus
history in its flight becomes poetry. I also have my golden age, my
heroic and legendary cycles. But what remains ever true, what has
plunged deepest roots not only into my imagination, but into my
affection, are the friendships formed during that portion of my life. . .
Each day brings me some new assurance of that, as I receive a letter
from you, news from Lamache, from Le Taillandier, from Pessonneaux
and from other friends. That translates me out of this ignorant
present. If it were not ridiculous to use such an expression at the age
of 25 years, I should say it rejuvenates me !"

He wrote in the same strain, though in somewhat warmer terms to
Le Taillandier about the 2ist August, 1837 : " My dear friend, may each
one of us, as he increases in years, increase also in friendship, piety,
and zeal to do good ! May our whole life be passed under the patronage

DEATH OF AMPERE 119

of those to whom we have dedicated our youth : Vincent de Paul, the
Blessed Virgin, and Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.— Good-bye.
I shall ever love you dearly."

CHAPTER X.
THE LYONS CONFERENCE,

A VISIT TO LAMARTINE. — FIRST LYONS CONFERENCE. — OPPOSITION TO
THE CONFERENCE. — OZANAMJS REPORT. — GROWTH. — CENTRE FOR
SOLDIERS. — e TO BE SAINTS IN ORDER TO MAKE SAINTS.' — LETTERS TO
LALLIER, SECRETARY-GENERAL OF THE SOCIETY

1836 — 1838.

Ozanam's return to Lyons after five years spent in the schools of
Paris, filled his parents' cup of happiness to the brim. He, on his side,
gave himself up without reserve to their demonstrations of joy and
gladness. The parents' joy mainly consisted in finding Ozanam un
changed. One mother wrote of him : "Ozanam fulfilled in himself
the desire which he had expressed for so many other young men ;
to return unchanged to the home, loving faith and purity as before,
with a heart fixed in the affections of the family, loyal to duty as a
Catholic, and determined never to quit the narrow path." She goes
on : " Those who have felt that joy alone know its ineffable sweetness,
and say that, of all the favours vouchsafed by Heaven, there is scarce
any more permanent or more precious than it."* Monsieur and
Madame Ozanam had already provided for the accommodation of the
coming Barrister at the Royal Courts of Lyons. But they were yet
four months from the opening of the sittings. Those holidays were,
with the exception of an excursion which we shall describe, devoted
by him to the foundation of the first Conference of the Society of St.
Vincent de Paul in Lyons, which will be the subject matter of this
chapter.

The interest of that excursion lies in the meeting which Ozanam,
his brother, and a friend, M. de Maubout, had with M. de Lamartine.
They were returning from a visit to the ruins of Cluny Abbey, when

* Frederick Ozanam d'aprds sa correspondance by Madam Edouard Humbert, a
Protestant lady from Geneva. — A handbook of 84 pages, Paris and Geneva, 1880.

LAMARTINE 121

they were met and stopped by the great man, who invited all three
to dine with him at his place at Monceaux. The Abbe reports that
the dinner party was large and distinguished. The Deputy for Saone-
et-Loire affected to decry philosophy and literature in favour of politics
as the dominant influence of the times and of men. Ozanam joined
in the conversation quietly and respectfully. He so attracted the
attention of the distinguished company by the elevation of his thought
and the refinement of his language, that his name had to be com
municated to them.

Ozanam barely mentions that meeting to Lallier : " I had two
charming trips with my elder brother : one to St. fitienne, where I
saw miracles of industry, the other in the Macon and Beaujolais coun
try, where I enjoyed the hospitality of M. de Maubout, the society of
M. de Lamartine, beautiful autumn weather, and a population that is
remarkable for their astonishing fidelity to the faith and to Catholic
practices." The student had already mentioned in a letter to his
mother during the year the desire of that great man of letters to be
above all else a great man of State : " I paid a visit," he wrote, " to
M. de Lamartine's house. He was surrounded by politicians and
scarcely spoke to me." They no longer spoke the same tongue.

The quasi-defection of the poet from religion had been the occasion
of a melancholy communication. Ozanam unburdened his grief to
his friend Dufieux in the following terms : " But lately we listened
in the Meditations and the Harmonies to the melodious murmurings
of Christian poetry. However filled with self -complaisance, it presumed
to be able to communicate directly with God, needing neither inter
preter nor temple. It has stopped, to oar dismay, half way on the
road to truth."

The shallow soul seemed at that time to rest on deism and rational
ism. The Church should speak out : "Two recent literary events,"
Ozanam writes during the same vacation, " have filled me with vexa
tion. I mean the placing on the Index of Lamartine's Jocelyn and
the publication of Lamennais' Paroles d'un Croyant."

That is his cause for sorrow ; but it is a sorrow not without strength.
That strength I admire in its outspoken adhesion to the spirited action
of the Holy See, as well as in the following splendid profession of Roman
Catholic faith : " Rome," he wrote to Lallier, "has shown its courage
in striking down the first and greatest ; it is scarcely likely to fear the
second. She does not fear the opposition of genius, for she has on

122 FREDERICK OZANAM

i I *'

her side what is more than genius, the Holy Ghost, a constant source
of inspiration. But it is irritating to see genius solemnly deserting
and passing into the camp of the enemy. A useless desertion,
because in abjuring faith, it abjures the source of its glory and strength,
a two-fold cause of grief for those who loved."

Ozanam remained one of " those who loved " : " We have often
heard our brother say," witnesses the Abbe Ozanam, " that time and
trials would bring back the poet of the Crucifix to his mother's faith
and piety."

Lamartine showed for his part that few others would have been
so well qualified to make straight the path of his return as the young
savant of whom he wrote later in his Cours familier de Litterature :
" That young man, whom I have not ceased to like, resembled in
appearance, in mind, in the serenity of his gaze, in the regular and
affectionate chant of his voice, a Christian Brahmin — the similarity
is curious — preaching the Gospel of Science and Peace to our dis
tracted world. He believed, as I did, that truth was more powerful
over the heart than over the mind. His dogma shimmers with grace,
as the sunrise and sunset of the East are bathed in dew. An atmosphere
of tenderness towards others enveloped him . . . His orthodoxy,
perfect for himself, was perfect charity for others. It softened all
asperities. Although my philosophy was no longer the same
as his, the difference did not separate our minds nor later our
personal relations. It was possible to differ, it was not possible to
quarrel, with this man who entertained no bitterness : his toleration
was not condescenion, it was respect."

In such eclipses and such failures Ozanam beheld the danger
of the Church betrayed, the faithful scandalised, the young men un
settled, and he was heard to say, " Who will fill, my dear friend, the
place which those two men have left vacant ? Who among us will
come and sit in the empty chair of our Tertullian ? Who will be bold
enough to take up the lyre from the dust and complete the hymn ?
I know that God and the Church do not need poets or doctors ; those
who do need them are the weak in belief, whom these defections
scandalise ; they are those who do not believe, and who despise
our poverty of intellect. It is we ourselves who need occasionally
to see at our head greater and better men, to lead the way, and to
encourage and strengthen us. We young Christians cannot hope
to take the place of such men. But can we not make up in quantity

THE LYONS CONFERENCE 123

what we lack in quality, and by our very numbers fill the gap which
they have left in our ranks ?"

As a set off the same letter, under the same date, the 5th November,
1836, mentions an event which brought consolation : " I have worked
somewhat during the holidays on the organisation of our little St.
Vincent De Paul Conference." This casual but valuable reference,
enables us to fix the date of the beginning of the Lyons Conference.

About one month later, on the 4th December, Ozanam reported
as follows to the Council of Paris : " Several young men, who had been
members of the Society in Paris, finding themselves home in Lyons
after their course of studies, remembered those friends who had helped
to make their exile in the metropolis easier. They called to mind the
happiness which they had experienced in seeking to do some little good
together, and to avoid a great deal of evil. Everything impelled them
to re-knit bonds which had just been severed. As the result of a quite
natural meeting they founded here a Conference of Charity on your
model."

The first meeting had been held on the i6th August. It was small.
Soon the accession of others, who also had been members in Paris,
raised the number to 13. Six young men in the city asked per
mission to join, three more were introduced. There were then 22
members " companions in alms and prayers," all imbued with the
primitive spirit of the Society ; a spirit of faith and piety, of
corporal and spiritual charity towards the poor, of recruitment
of young Lyons students in Paris : " They will return trained by you,
bringing back with them the sacred fire, which you will have kindled."

Twenty families were adopted and visited in their homes : " The
visited, as well as the visitors, edify one another, living in the unity
and under the shelter of the mantle of St. Vincent de Paul."

This letter was read at the General Meeting in Paris on the 8th
December. "On the same day that you are celebrating the festival,
we shall be gathered at the altars of the same God, at the feet of the
same Immaculate Mother of God, we, the children of the city that was
the first to honour her Immaculate Conception with public worship."
In concluding the letter, Ozanam pays a tribute to M. Bailly as Pre
sident-General " the father who had been the guardian angel of their
youth in the Metropolis, and whose wisdom and prudence he and his
friends now miss."

Ozanam's feelings of gratitude for that great and good man are

124 FREDERICK OZANAM

more clearly exhibited in one of his early letters, in which he recom
mended to his kind services a young Lyons student who was going
to Paris to study : " To whom," he asks, " could I better recommend
him than to you, who, with good M. Ampere, exercised such a moral
influence over me, you, whom many mothers are blessing, because you
safeguarded their son's religion? If you think well of it, you could
gradually induce him to join the Society of St. Vincent de Paul."

He adds : " From this on, many of these young Lyons men will come
to you, these children of the city of the martyrs. We have already
a number here who are experiencing the benefit of your advice and
example ; we are doing our best to procure the same advantages for
the generation whose elders we are. That will be one of the principal
aims of the Conference in our city, in union with the Society in Paris.
Our branch is newly-born, but it is alive. It is weak, but it can become
strong by preserving the bonds of unity with the parent Society.
It needs that, were it only to overcome the difficulties here from good
people who are timid."

" Help us then to grow, to multiply, to become better, gentler,
stronger, for as days increase in number, evil is added to evil and dis
tress to distress. The political question is giving way to the social
question, a struggle between poverty and wealth, between the sefish-
ness which seeks to take, and that which seeks to keep. Terrible,
indeed, will be the clash of those two egoisms, if charity does not
intervene, if she does not mediate with all-powerful love between
the poor who have the strength of numbers, and the rich who have
the strength of gold. With such merciful ends in view it is not
surprising that Providence inspired you to found our Society, nor
that it has developed under your auspices."

Ozanam was able to acquaint the General Quarterly Meeting on
the Feast of St. Vincent de Paul, in the month of July, that the young
Conference had increased the number of its members to 40, who were
visiting 70 families, etc. Their numbers had been doubled in eight
months. The President added : " Nobody will be missing from this
spiritual feast. We shall be all there together, under the eyes of St.
Vincent De Paul our father, of the Blessed Virgin our Mother, and
- of Jesus Christ our God."

The Conference, though altogether lay, had powerful support among
the clergy. Several Cures were attached to it, the Cure of St. Pierre
in particular ; and above all the Vicar-General, who was guardian of

DIFFICULTIES IN LYONS 125

the Catholic Associations in the diocese. To crown all, words of ap
probation and benediction had fallen from the venerable lips of Arch
bishop Pins, diocesan administrator, taking the place of Cardinal Fesch.

Yet Ozanam wrote, " There need not be any illusion ; the Society
has been distrusted on all sides. We have just read of ' the difficulties
here from good people who are timid/ '

The Bulletin for the year 1837 indicates the causes. The Society
did not originate in Lyons, and moreover it originated in Paris ; its
novelty "in a city not less attached to traditional institutions and
practices than to its faith and morals"; finally, the routine piety
of many, who were naturally suspicious and blindly zealous.

Ozanam in his account of his difficulties to his confreres in Paris,
describes the traditional simplicity of the meetings, the blind prejudices
opposed to them, and the Christian methods with which those straight
forward and peaceful young men met them : " We meet every Tuesday
evening at eight. There is, just as in Paris, a plain table, a green cover,
two candles, tickets for provisions, old clothes, etc. Neither the room
nor the purse is well filled. We have met some difficulties which
we had foreseen. Good people, even serious people, have grown
fearful. They exclaim that a cabal of young men, who succeeded
in imposing Pere Lacordaire on the Archbishop of Paris, wish to make
themselves masters of Lyons ; that they had begged all the Sisters
of Charity in the city to furnish them with lists of poor families ; that
they were at least thirty in number ; that some of their number were
not even Christians ; that they would discredit all other Associations
of Charity by the irregular way in which they would conduct theirs,
etc."

" Following our rule we have humbled ourselves ; we have made
clear our innocent intentions, our respect for all other Associations
of Charity. After a while they contented themselves with saying that
we would not succeed ... I hope that, notwithstanding their
dismal prophecies, we shall succeed, not through secrecy but through
humility, not by numbers but by love, not under patronage but under
the grace of God."

Ozanam, in a personal letter to Lallier, with whom he was more at
his ease, lets himself go in his own picturesque style on the subject
of " these lay writers of orthodoxy, patres conscripti in frock-coats and
spats ; infallible doctors, who pronounce ex cathedra when the case
is finished; provincial puritans, for whom everything that comes

i26 FREDERICK OZANAM

from Paris is anathema ; doctrinaires, whose political opinion is for
them the thirteenth article of the Creed, forestallers of every Associa
tion which they must monopolise, etc. You cannot imagine the
pettiness, the gibes, the insults, the finnicking and the finessing, which
these good people have used against us, with the best intentions in
the world. Chaurand and I, as the principal founders and directors
of the Society here, have been constantly on the defensive ; a struggle
which has wearied us greatly. The greatest resultant harm is a little
bitterness of spirit which always remains behind ; charity necessarily
suffers from such wrangles. Yet we cannot avoid them in the interests
of the Society and of truth."

Such regrets were not however signs of discouragement, as the rest
of the report shows : " The Conference had in 1837 increased the number
of its members to 50, of whom 35 attended regularly." The December
report stated " The severity of the season procured a welcome for
us everywhere, and plenty of aid from the Christian population here ;
faith among the poor ; treasures of joy and of resignation for ourselves.
In the business of Charity the expenditure is small and the profit great."

Owing to the growth of membership and the distance between
different parts of the city, the Conference decided to sub-divide :
one for the north side, another for the south : one in the Parish of St.
Pierre, the other in the Parish of St. Francis. Seventy-five fami ies
were visited : "One rescued from proselytising influences, an infant
baptised, several men led back to the Sacraments, showed our Brothers
that divine grace had not been wanting to our feeble efforts."

The principal special work, and one very appropriate to the spirit
of St. Vincent de Paul, was a Club or meeting place for the soldiers
of the many garrisons in the city. "A good priest of the diocesan
missionary house, situate in the centre of a number of barracks,
taking pity on so many poor neglected men, asked our co-operation
in their salvation. A house was selected. A library of 500 volumes
was installed. In five months 268 soldiers came to a healthy source
for instruction. Books were lent and circulated, and more than one
thousand readers enjoyed the benefits of this institution."

"A school was added to the library. Twice a week lessons in reading,
writing, and arithmetic were given by the Brothers. Thus, by multiply
ing the points of personal contact, confidence was reposed on one side
and good advice imparted on the other. A little meeting, which we
hope will increase, takes place on Sundays, to listen to an instruction

SPECIAL WORK FOR SOLDIERS 127

from a priest, and to say night prayer in common." Ozanam men
tions the fruit ! " We have learned much in our frequent interviews
with soldiers. We should never have believed that so many noble
hearts beat beneath the uniform, or that so many preserved a tender
attachment to their mothers' faith and their sisters' example."

M. Bailly said, in answer to Ozanam : " I handed your letter on the
Special Work for Soldiers to the Archbishop. He was much affected
by it. It is indeed a beautiful mission. Try and write again before
the loth December next, when we come together again. Ozanam
wrote before that : " We should be very glad to see established,
first in Paris, later elsewhere, something on the same lines as we have
here, in order that our good soldiers when they leave here will find
the same friendly care in other garrison towns." . . . He indicated
a zealous priest, vicar of St. Valere, close by the Invalides, as one very
suitable for the work.

Let us state here that the following year's report showed progress in
each of the two Conferences as well as in their special works. They had
succeeded in procuring medical aid for the sick from young doctors in
the Society, and free distribution of medicine from two chemists of
the districts : " We hope that in thus ensuring material help, it will
be possible to ensure at the same time spiritual improvement. It is
extraordinary what wonderful metamorphoses a pious doctor can
bring about at the death-bedside."

The same report mentioned conversions due to the Sunday evenings'
instruction to the soldiers. The seed which had been sown would
germinate sooner or later. That depends in a great measure on our
selves. "Ah !" exclaimed Ozanam " who could measure results if
our piety were more lively and we were less anworthy of our voca
tion ? — Ordinary Catholics are plentiful enough, everywhere ; we
need saints. How make saints without being ourselves holy ? How
preach to unhappy people about virtues, in which they are richer than
we ? We must indeed admit with St. Vincent de Paul that, in that,
they are our superiors. " The poor of Jesus Christ are our lords and
our masters, said the saint, and we are unworthy to render them our
poor services !"

The solicitude of the absent founder was unceasingly directed on
Paris, the headquarters and centre of the Society. Ozanam wrote to
Lallier, Secretary-General, the right-hand man of the venerable Presi
dent, reminding him of his responsibility. His chief obligation was

I28 FREDERICK OZANAM

to keep the Conferences in touch with one another, and with Paris,
their common centre of light and heat. " It is a poor thing to increase,
if unity be not maintained ; the centre must be kept in touch with the
circumference by regular chords ! Our little Society of St. Vincent
de Paul has become sufficiently large to be regarded as providential,
and it is not for nothing that you hold an important position in it.
Make no mistake about it, Secretary-General, you are, after M. Bailly,
the main-spring of the Society. On you depends the unity of Con
ferences, and on that unity, the vigour and life of the Society."

Ozanam mentioned specifically the means by which that was to be
accomplished. The first in importance was the President-General's
Address to Conferences, attached to the annual report. The report
sets forth the activities, the President-General's Address recalls the
spirit, the rule, the aims and object of the Society. It was indeed
with the year 1837 that Lallier inaugurated the series of Addresses
of the Council-General which have contributed so much to widen
and deepen the river of Christian charity, flowing to the very ends of
the world : " We now begin with you," said the first, a correspondence
which, to us, will be indeed most delightful. You know that one
thing especially supports and strengthens us in this world — it is the
thought of having near us friends on whom we can rely for advice
and example. The individual who has friends lives a dual life, and
so do charitable societies when other branches arise."

In addition to this chief duty, the Secretary-General was to be
regularly present at special meetings ; to meet Presidents from time to
time ; to keep in hand the meetings of the Council-General ; to stimu
late occasionally the excessive calm of the President-General ; not
to neglect correspondence with county Conferences ; to insist on punc
tuality in the furnishing of reports. Then, in conclusion : " Now,
my dear friend, I should dearly wish to have a few hours' chat with
you, to tell you hundreds of things which may be spoken but may
not be written."

He scolds him at times : " Let us not limit too narrowly the number
of Brothers, or the length of the meetings ? Why may not the active
membership of the Conferences of St. £tienne du Mont and St. Sulpice
exceed 50 ? Look to it. It is your privilege and duty, by virtue
-of your seniority and responsibility, to make new appeals from time
to time to the zeal of members, not departing from the primitive spirit,
but grafting progress on tradition."

ISOLATED MEMBERS 129

He congratulated and thanked him frequently : " The notification
of three new joint meetings which you have held of Conferences in
Paris, has given us great pleasure. Let us not reject what makes for
unity, nor place difficulties in the way of bringing members together !
Continue to direct the Addresses of the Presidents to those points most
likely to interest members. . . If you only knew the authority of
an announcement which comes to us from Paris !"

He was searching for the means to link up to one another and to the
centre of the Society, those youthful associates whom a completed
course of study would isolate in their native town : " Where a Con
ference does not exist, would it not be possible to unite young men in
prayer, in charity, in the private exercise of good works which they
could report by correspondence and which would appear in the annual
report ? There would in this way be an interchange of views, of
sentiments, and of edification from all parts of France, wherever the
children of St. Vincent de Paul would be scattered. The Conference
in Paris would not then be merely a resting-place for two or three years,
leading nowhere, and you would not have to lament more than two
hundred associates who are now lost to us. You would then be the
summit of a pyramid, the base of which would rest on the four corners
of the country, and the French youth of the igth century would have
erected a pleasing monument to God on the soil desecrated by the
youth of the last century."

Ozanam was well aware how weak the instruments were : " We are
as yet but apprentices in this divine craft," he writes elsewhere. " Let
us hope that one day we shall become skilled and useful workmen.
Then in our several spheres we shall engage in friendly rivalry as to
who will do the most good and best instil virfue. When you will
acquaint us with your success we shall inform you of ours. Then from
every part of France a harmonious chorus of faith and love will ascend ;
in praise of God."

Those letters of Ozanam have postscripts for his former poor families
in Paris, particularly for the children : " If you see M. de Kerguelen
ask him to remember me kindly to the little apprentices, Marius and
Blondeau."

The most important matter which he discussed with the Secretary-
General was fidelity to the primitive spirit of the Society, which is the
spirit of St. Vincent de Paul. Humility is the first virtue. He feared
pride more than opposition ; he wished for obscurity rather than pros-

I3o FREDERICK OZANAM

perity for the Society : " I agree with your intention," he wrote " of
emphasizing in your next President's Address the necessity for re
maining obscure. It would be well to lay down this principle : that
humility is as obligatory on associations as on individuals ; and to
support it by the example of St. Vincent de Paul, who reprimanded
a priest of the Congregation of the Mission for calling his Association
' Our Holy Congregation.' Our guiding rule should be neither to
force ourselves on the public gaze, nor to conceal ourselves from those
who may wish to find us."

Ozanam disapproves " of pride in the Society which under the cover
of a feeling of esprit de corps, produces bombastic reports of the
great deeds of Conferences and Brothers. He disapproves of addresses
and preachers who wish to do us a service by crowning us with laurels.
He congratulates the Society on having been able to disarm envy by
discounting itself : " It was prophesied for us that publicity meant
death ; it is to our obscurity that we owe our life, our development,
and whatever good work we have done ; thanks to it we have been
able to falsify the prophets of evil."

It was indeed the gifts of wisdom and understanding that God had
given to the young Solomon, whom He had made the chief of His
young tribes and whom He had chosen as the rock of His temple
of Charity. The same letters state : " The leaders of such associations
should be holy, in order to draw down God's graces. That is why I,
who am so wicked and so weak, often ask myself how I can venture
to represent such a large number of good young men !" " My dear
friend, who will deliver me from myself unless He whom we ask to
deliver us from evil ? Let us ask together and we shall receive !
For myself I never receive Holy Communion without praying in a
special manner for you. Good-bye ! We shall meet, I presume,
next Sunday, at the rendez-vous of the Holy Eucharist."

Meantime Lallier, having also obtained the Degree of Doctor of
Laws towards the close of 1838, and having practised for a while,
left Paris to live in Sens. First a post as auxiliary Judge, and sub
sequently his marriage with a young lady of the city, made him settle
down there for life.

Ozanam, too, was practising at the Bar for a year, and it is at the
Court in Lyons that we next find him.

CHAPTER XL

THE BAR.

OZANAM'S PREJUDICES : ABUSES. — DEFENCE OF THE POOR. — HIS FATHER'S

DEATH. — BUSINESS EMBARRASSMENT. — WORKS, DeS BieW de V EgllSt. —

Annals of the Propagation of the Faith. — THE CASE OF THE

ARCHBISHOP OF COLOGNE.

1837.

As soon as the Sittings of the Royal Courts of Lyons opened, Ozanam
had his name inscribed on the register of Barristers : " It is a solemn
act," as he wrote on the 5th November, " and being solemn, sad."
What made the adoption of a profession sad for him was that it meant
a farewell to the profession of science and of Literature which
had charms for him, and from which he parted with regret. The
latter would not have brought him more wealth or honour ; but it
would have contributed more to the honour and glory of God, which
was what the soul of the apostle of truth looked to : " I am suffering,"
he wrote at the same time, " from an uncertainty of vocation. I am
to see the stones and the dust of every walk of life, but the flowers
of none. The Bar especially holds less and less attraction for me."

He felt still worse about it after he had discussed matters with some
business people in Lyons. That brought him into actual touch with
the seamy side of the profession. He again became a prey to doubts
and misgivings. We shall return to the subject only for the purpose
of seeing him raise himself by prayer into the arms of God : " Let us
pray for each other, my very dear friend, let us be on our guard against
our troubles, our griefs, our very lack of confidence. Let us walk
simply in the path where a merciful Providence leads us, content to
see the stone whereon we are to place our foot, without desiring to see
the length or the windings of the way."

I32 FREDERICK OZANAM

The experience gained by practice did not abate his prejudice
against his profession, it rather increased it. Certain methods
were not to his liking. He wrote : " There is scarce any case, no matter
how good it may be, wherein there is not something wrong, and in
which a just advocate would not have to admit a weakness. But that
is not the way in which the case comes before the Court. According
to the Barrister, his client cannot but be right in all his allegations
and claims ; on the other hand his opponent must necessarily be a
rogue . . . . ! The Bar has thus grown accustomed to invective,
hyperbole and suppression, which even the best members employ,
and to which one must grow accustomed !" Would he ever be able
to bring himself to that ?

Then, again, he was shocked at the insincerity and excess with which
money claims were made : " It is a practice that two hundred francs
damages must be sought when one wants fifty. You must thunder
against your opponent, strike him down and beat him to the ground.
If you express yourself in terms of moderation, that is a weakness by
which you invite defeat. Your colleagues gibe at you, your client
regards himself as sold. If you should meet one of the Judges outside
who tried the case he will stop you to tell you : " My dear young
friend, you were too mild." That is why he wrote in confidence :
" I shall never get acclimatised to the atmosphere of chicanery."

Without assuming the role of either censor or reformer, the young
man confided to his friends that " he, at all events, would make it a
practice to maintain a just balance between plaintiff and defendant,
seeking to justify the latter without, however, wronging the former.'*
He would not ask for business, nor ' devil ' with a senior who would be
likely to give him business. He himself would select his own cases
so as to be the champion of pure justice. \Vith him that came from
the promptings of conscience rather than from a spirit of independence
and pride.

He did plead ; and one of his first addresses displayed those lofty
sentiments. He had been nominated by the Judge to defend a prisoner
who was too poor to engage counsel. " The poor man's friend," his
brother relates, " placed at the disposal of his poor client all his ability,
energy, and talent, and that with an obvious sincerity which his voice
betrayed. The Crown prosecutor had the bad taste to pour gentle
ridicule on him, suggesting ironically to the new hand, that he took
himself altogether too seriously in a role which had been assigned to

ANTIPATHY TO THE BAR 133

him through pure formality. Ozanam blushed, not for himself but
for his opponent. He, in his turn, stated calmly and firmly how much
amazed he, a new hand, was to find a responsible official making so
little of the dignity of the Court. Was the defence of the poor mere
•comedy, and the position of a Judge that of an actor ?" The judges
smiled approval. One of them, indeed, shook hands with the young
advocate as soon as the Court arose.

Ozanam's antipathy to the Bar explains why he had no sooner
entered on that career, than he was looking for a way out. On
the 15 th November, 1836, he confided to Janmot : " I am finding that
the only profession open to me is the Bar ; and since that is too trying
for my feelings I am seeking to qualify myself for another career to
which I should be naturally more inclined. I mean lecturing. It
is not at all improbable that a Chair of Law or Literature may be
established here. I shall try to be ready for that. At the moment
I am busy with a thesis for the Degree of Doctor of Literature, for
which I have not been able to present myself this year owing to lack
of time, and for which I shall have to return for some weeks to Paris."

On the I2th February, 1837, these views on a Chair of Law are set
forth more definitely in a letter to M. Jean Jacques Ampere : " When
leaving Paris last year I acquainted you with my aversion to the rough-
and-tumble of business, with my student's dreams, and with the moral
obligation that I was under, to return to my parents and earn my
living in Lyons. I confided to you the suggestion which had been made
to me, to induce the Government to establish a Chair of Commercial
Law in Lyons and to nominate me for the Chair. That idea, which
would have been very daring, if it had originated with myself, had
occurred to and been supported by many distinguished people in our
city. Matters now seem to be coming to a head. The Lyons Chamber
of Commerce has presented a petition to the Ministry of Commerce
which is to be communicated to the Ministry of Education."

J. J. Ampere was requested to support the petition and also the
nomination of Ozanam for the Chair, on the ground that the great
Ampere would certainly have done so if he had lived a year longer.
" As the representative of his great genius," added Frederick, " you
are equally for me the representative of his patronage. I am, sir,
your most obedient servant, while awaiting the title of friend, which
you have been pleased occasionally to bestow on me."

But the double business of establishing a Chair of Law and of nom-

134 FREDERICK OZANAM

inating a lecturer thereto was to be a prolonged affair. Six commissions
were appointed successively to report on the matter, and, notwith
standing great influence in Paris, it was a full two years before it was
concluded. During those two years Ozanam made a special study
of that branch of Law in order to be in a position, when the time came,
to do credit to the confidence of his fellow citizens.

He continued pleading without further complaint. " My life," he
wrote to La Perriere, on the loth March, " is passed between inter
mittent study and irksome work. I include most irreverently under
the latter head the occasional cases that take me to the Court."

A prosecution against the Lyons Gazette for an attack on the King's
Government provided him with an opportunity of winning unanimous
approval from the court. He brought to bear on the argument
lofty considerations of history, policy, and morality, which were very
highly appreciated : " I have been greatly complimented on my ad
dress. My poor words succeed occasionally in winning approval, but
never a verdict." He lost his case. His noble flights of passionate
eloquence were the subject of much comment at the Assizes. He was,
indeed, an orator ; but his client was convicted. At the close of the
sittings in 1837 he gave the following resume of his work : " I appeared
some twelve times ; three times only on the Civil side where I suc
ceeded on each occasion." He was a jurist. — " Yes, indeed, my dear
friend, pleading is not without its charm for me ; but fees come with
difficulty, and the relations with business people are so unpleasant,
so humiliating, and so unjust, that I cannot bring myself to develop
them."

One day, smarting no doubt from some particular incident, he
threw off this satiric denunciation, which would be quite unjustifiable
if applied to the Court of Lyons generally, ever honourable
in the matter of professional etiquette : " Justice," my dear friend,
" is the last moral refuge, the last sanctuary of modern society. To
see it surrounded by impurity is a constant source of indignation to
me. This Profession upsets me too much ; I return from Court every
day with my finer feelings outraged. I can no more resign myself to
see evil, than to suffer it."

He came back to the subject of Literature which was his first choice,
his last and great hope : " I think that I have already told you,"
continued the letter to Janmot, " that one of my theses for the
Degree of Doctor of Literature is on the philosophy of Dante, whom

DEATH OF HIS FATHER 135

I admire more and more. Ah ! my dear friend, happy are those who
can devote themselves to the pursuit of the beautiful, the true, and the
great, freed from the vulgar need of providing for the necessities of
daily life !"

But it was in Paris rather than in Lyons, that he would be able to
find the original authorities for the theses. It was also in Paris that
he could best push on the matter of the Chair of Commerce in Lyons.
Were not his friendships, as well as his Conferences, calling him thither,
at least for a visit ?

He went for three months in the Spring of 1837 and was plunging
with delight into research when a series of terrible letters reached
him : " His father was dying !" On the 12 th May, 1837 the good
Doctor Ozanam, making one of his visits to the bedside of his poor
clients, stumbled on a broken stair and injured himself fatally. In
a few short hours he was no more.

There was then neither telegraph nor railway between Paris and
Lyons. Lallier accompanied his friend on the i5th May in sadness
and silence to the stage coach, not venturing to inform him of the death,
which he had learned privately. Frederick spent from three to four
days on the journey to his mother and brothers. It was only on
seeing their tears, and in his mother's arms, that he learned the sad
news definitely and fully understood the magnitude of his misfortune.

He was inconsolable. He confided that to J. J. Ampere. He recalled
the day, just a year previously, when in his little student's room,
both wept over the death of the great Ampere, equally dear to both.
He adds : " It is on me that the hand of Providence is heavy to-day.
When after a short absence I arrived in Lyons, in answer to startling
news, my father had passed away. I shall not see him again in this
life. Those who have not had the experience cannot know the void
which the loss of such a man creates. Such love, and respect, and
homage, was offered him, that in his own family circle he was the
visible presence of the divinity !

" My father," he continues in his letter to Ampere, " had not, it is
true, gained any honours in the world of Science, his name was not
renowned. But his labours and his virtues won love and esteem
from his colleagues and his fellow-citizens, in whose service he died.
He was not known to you ; but you know me, his son. If your kind
ness found something not unworthy in me, it was from him, from his
counsel and from his example that it came to me. Your kind affection

136 FREDERICK OZANAM

assures me that we shall again share a common grief. One is almost
glad to suffer in such company."

In speaking to those who were more religious than Jean Jacques,
it is his father's piety that he loves to dwell upon. "It is a great
consolation to us, my dear friend," he writes to Curnier, " to think
that my father's piety, enlightened in later days by a more frequent
-use of the Sacraments, his virtues, good works, trials and dangers,
have smoothed his passage into the Heavenly Kingdom ; soon, if we
are found deserving, we shall find him in the eternal home where death
is not. The more the number of our dear departed is increased in
that invisible world, the more powerful becomes the force of attraction.
We cleave less to earth, when the roots by which we were attached
have been broken by time."

Then a reference to the bond of friendship and prayer : " Is not
friendship, my dear friend, a community of suffering ? .... It is in
the presence of God that I would have you remember my trials and the
needs of my family ; He alone joins the distant, consoles the absent,
and brings those together again whom He has made to love Him."

As Dr. Ozanam was one of those men on whose shoulders
a household rests, his disappearance meant the collapse of everything.
The young man declared that in his isolation, he was seized, not only
with grief but with terror. He compared himself to a child who has
been suddenly left alone in an empty house and who weeps in terror
at the feeling of loneliness and weakness : " It is true," he says, " that
my mother is still there, that she encourages me by her presence and
blesses me with her hands ; but she is prostrate with grief, and I am
tortured with anxiety as to the state of her health." His brother, a
priest on the mission, was fully taken up with his ministry ; his younger
brother, Charles, was only twelve years of age : " And I," wrote
Frederick, " what can I do with my vacillating and timid character ?
I need more than anything else to have better men, not only around
me, but above me. I need intermediaries between my pettiness and
the immensity of God." He represents himself as a traveller in a
storm-swept plain, who sees his shelter swept away and who finds
himself lost under the infinite span of the heavens.

The responsibility for the household weighed on the young jurist.
It proved very troublesome. " Family quarrels alone excepted, we
have had all the unpleasantness of an administration suit in which a ,
minor is concerned." The inventory of the father's small estate";

FAMILY DIFFICULTIES 137

and the examination of his accounts showed the splendid unselfishness
of that great heart. " I owe him this tribute," Ozanam wrote later,
" that I was able to show with the figures before me, that one- third of
his professional visits were made to known poor without any hope
whatever of fees."

The administration of his scanty estate did not long leave
Frederick in doubt as to the insufficiency of their means for the
necessities of a family who had lost their chief source of income.
Who then, if not himself, could make up the deficiency ? Yet the
greatest of his anxieties was for his mother's health. He wrote on
the igth June to his cousin, Henri Pessonneaux, as follows:—" My
dear mother is in constant suffering : grief is eating her heart out
and she is never without headache. Yet her great virtue, exemplified
in her resignation to the will of God, is the admiration of the family.
Happy is he to whom God has given a pious mother ! But why is
it that in proportion as the halo of sanctity surrounds with increasing
brilliancy the beloved head, the shadows of approaching death grow
deeper ? Why, in the language of men, is perfection synonymous
with completion ? . . . My dear friend, join with me in prayer
that my mother may be spared to me, that she may be preserved to
my brothers, who need her so much ; that this house, which you knew
as the abode of domestic happiness and affection, may not be thrown
into despair, may not become a distracted house of grief, to be pointed
out to men as an example of the vicissitude of human affairs ; that it
may not become a source of scandal to unbelievers who, at the sight
of a Christian family suffering such trials, will ask insolently, where
is the God in whom they placed their hope : Ubi est Deus eorum ? "

" As for me," adds the Christian, "it is ever in Him that I hope.
I am determined to follow His directions in my tangled circumstances."

One of the consequences of his father's death was to fix him per
manently in Lyons, near his mother, by the side of his young brother,
as the instructor and the mainstay of the family. But his position
must supply the means of doing all that.

His profession as Barrister was almost unproductive. He found
himself compelled to take cheap terms for a 'grind' for " three young
men who are too grand to sit at the desks of a school." He was, to
his intimate friends, obviously at close quarters with poverty. One
way out alone remained. " If I am to remain with my mother and
brothers, the Chair of Commercial Law in Lyons can alone provide

138 FREDERICK OZANAM

me with a certain and honourable position." Therefore he was again
busy interviewing and interesting the several authorities. But it
is from God alone that he expected success, and it was to His affection
as Father that he appealed : " For the rest, I am passive. I have a
kind of religious, almost superstitious awe for the actual uncertainty
of my future. I have placed all in the hands of God and I fear to
meddle with it."

He learned more and more to kiss and to adore the hand of Providence
which he had grasped. Writing on the 5th October 1837, from Pierre-
Benite, near Lyons, he unbosomed himself to the sympathetic heart
of Lallier, giving an account of a conversation which he had just had
with a man of God. The letter concluded with a description of a clarion
call from the Gospel sounded by the priest, which startled and inspired
him :

" You well see, my dear friend, that my way is not a path of roses.
Lately, when haunted by dark forebodings, and dejected by constant
meditation on my interior and exterior troubles, with my head in a
whirl, and utterly incapable of thought or action, I saw but one remedy
for my too great trials, viz., recourse to a doctor. To the doctor, I mean,
who holds the secret of moral infirmity, and who is the depositary
of divine balsam and grace."

Who was the Lyons priest ? He does not mention his name.

He continues : "After I had unfolded my sorrows with unusual
energy to the man of charity whom I call " father," what reply do
you think he made ? He replied in the words of the Apostle : Gaudete
in Domino semper, Rejoice in the Lord always. Is not that strange
talk ? Here is a poor man, who has incurred the greatest of all mis
fortunes in the spiritual order, that of offending God ; and the greatest
of all misfortunes in the natural order, that of becoming an orphan.
His mother is aged and ill ; he daily watches her every movement,
her every look, her every feature, to seek to know how long she will
be spared to him. He is isolated by distance or death from many
friends to whom he is dearly attached ; a still sadder separation threatens
him. He is, in addition, overwhelmed with the anxieties caused by
an uncertain future, and with daily business worries, the lightest of which
even gall him. If he relies on himself he finds weakness and im
perfection ; secret humiliation and suffering are not the least difficult
to bear. Yet he has been just told, not indeed to be resigned, not
indeed to be consoled, but to rejoice, and to rejoice always : Gaudete

SUFFERING AND ACTION 139

semper \ It needs all the audacity and the pious insolence of Christian
ity to speak in that strain. Yet Christianity is right !"

The last words of the letter to Lallier are a call for mutual encourage
ment to become more grounded in confidence and stronger in work.
" Let us aid one another, my dear friend, by example and advice.
Let us strive that our trust in grace may equal our distrust of nature.
Let us be strong even in suffering, for weakness is the malady of the
times. Let us remember that we have already lived a third of our
existence, and that we have lived by the goodness of others ; we must
live what is left, for the good of others. Let us do without hesitation
whatever good lies at our hand."

Strength in suffering, strength in action; suffering and action;
interior and exterior suffering ; charitable and literary action, which,
assuaging, consoling, and illuminating, from Lyons stretches out to
Paris, nay, even beyond Paris.— Such is Ozanam's early life in his
own home.

We are able to depict him from his correspondence alone in the house
wherein he is kept daily, not so much by business as by anxiety and
care for his afflicted mother. " I am alone with her. My young
brother is at College. The never-ending missions of my elder brother
keep him from us ; it may be that the designs of God will remove him
still further from me. The failing strength of my mother presents
each day the saddest sight possible. Her moral strength seems to
decrease with failing sight. Her susceptibility to pain increases with
interior suffering, which is easily understood. Thus, instead of finding
in her the prop which I now need, I find that I have to support her
mentally and physically."

It is the isolation that crushes him : " It is, above all, the community
of thoughts and of sentiments that I miss, sympathy, intellectual
encouragement, and moral assistance ; those are the privileges of
intimate friendship ; their absence leaves me poor indeed. I do find
them, but all too seldom, in our Society of St. Vincent de Paul. The
weekly meetings are one of the greatest consolations which Providence
has left me. In particular, my relations with Chaurand, Arthaud,
La Perriere, recall to me the best days in Paris. Our Conferences are
holding their ground. If they increase, it is like soil reclaimed from
the seas."

Ozanam pressed Lallier to add literary activity to his charitable
action by the publication of his works on Social Economy, which had

I4o FREDERICK OZANAM

been well received by the Catholic Press. Lallier, who had been like
Ozanam a regular attendant at the course on Economy given by M.
de Coux, remained one of the ablest and best known members of that
school ; he had not ceased to study that science when he adopted Law
as his profession. Ozanam had written to him as early as 1837 :
" Do not bury your talent in your duties as father of a family. You
owe that to the young men of your own generation who are looking
for the fulfilment of the early promise of your success. You owe that
to your friends who count greatly on your co-operation in preserving
faith and morals in such evil times."

He himself set the example. We need only refer to the titles of
the Apologetics of the Lyons period, written on weighty questions of
public law by the bedside of his grief-stricken mother. He spoke
of them in a letter to Henri Pessonneaux, dated I3th June, 1837, as
follows :— " While awaiting the result of my candidature for the Chair
of Commercial Law, I have not given up literary work, which is cer
tainly for me one of the greatest mundane consolations." What his
heavenly consolation was we have just seen.

Church Property, is the title and the subject matter of a study in
four articles, subsequently enlarged into a scholarly brochure of
four chapters.

He clearly proves that the origin of ecclesiastical property is sacred,
its possession inviolable, its use beneficent. He shows that its spolia
tion by the Revolution was not only a crime but a blunder, for that
act was anti-political, anti-social, and anti-humanitarian in the highest
degree. There are many pages in this little volume which could be
read with profit to-day.

Another work, first published in the September and October, 1837,
issues of the Univers under the title Origines du Droit franf ais (First
Beginnings of French Law), was a vigorous critique of a contribution by
Michelet on the came subject. Michelet maintained the paradox
that it was Roman Law purified, popularised, and enthroned by the
Stoics that had paved the way for Christianity. The error was gross.
Roman Law was as cruel as Stoicism. Christianity, on the other hand
had, by its influence, demonstrable from the first century, permeated
the despotism of the one and the proud egotism of the other with the
spirit of justice and the Charity of the Gospel. That is Ozanam's
thesis, demonstrated with an amount of research which is astounding
in such a young author.

RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSY 141

But the Michelet whom he refuted, the Michelet of 1837, was not the
headlong spirit who, in later years, used to wax frantic at the very
mention of the Church. The recent Sorbonne student declared, that he
could not forget the days when he and his comrades Idudly applauded
the charming wizard. " It was impossible for us," he writes, " to gaze
without emotion on the brow which deep study had wrinkled, or on
those locks untimely blanched. We shall ever remember that day
when, in the lecture hall of the Sorbonne, we listened to his resonant
voice recounting the life and death of Joan of Arc in accents that
brought tears to our eyes."

Was that all ? Pity and compassion for the man, with some hope
of his return, were intertwined with literary sympathy. He says that
" he was interested in that soul." It was the same man whom he had
heard apostrophising in one of his lectures the Cross of the Coliseum :
" Is not that Cross, which becomes every day more salutary, the only
refuge of a religious soul ? " " The altar has lost its honours, humanity
is drifting away from it by degrees. But please tell me has he erected
another altar for himself?" He had heard Michelet recall, "the
emotion aroused by our Christian feasts, the touching sound of the
bells and their sweet domestic reproach." Then he said to himself,
"The spirit is sound but the heart is heavy laden !" From that day
on Ozanam pitied him sincerely, for that he carried, without being
able to throw off, the shirt of Nessus', doubt, that wrung cries of grief
from him. Ozanam's frank nature saw in all that " a sentiment that
promised conversion." On this occasion his hope was cruelly deceived,
yet his mistake showed a noble and sympathetic heart.

Religious controversy did not find him unprepared. It did happen
occasionally that Protestant ministers in Lyons discussed such questions
with the young and learned champion of the Roman Catholic Church.
Madame Ozanam loved to tell the story of one who detained her son
for hours debating a passage of the Bible, over which they could not
agree. The minister upheld the text of a French translation, made
in 1700 by the French Protestant savant, David Martin. Ozanam
supported the Latin text of the Vulgate, which has the authority of
the name of St. Jerome, its author, and which was recognised and
adopted by the Council of Trent. The other fell back on the Greek
text of the Septuagint which Jerome, as he maintained, had misunder
stood and mistranslated. Ozanam at once laid the Greek Bible on the
table. He opened it at the debated passage, translated it word for

142 FREDERICK OZANAM

word, and demonstrated that St. Jerome had correctly interpreted
it. The minister hoped to get out of the difficulty by replying that
the Greek was, after all, but itself a translation. — " That is so," said
Ozanam, " let us then have recourse to the Hebrew." The Hebrew
Bible was at hand, the original text was pointed out and translated
literally. The daring controversialist was not the less embarrassed
because he had to admit that he did not know Hebrew. Whereupon
he beat a retreat, promising to return after consulting eminent authori
ties. " We did not see him again !" added Ozanam 's mother, not
without some touch of family pride.

Twenty years previous to this period Lyons saw the humble birth
of the Society for the Propagation of the Faith, elder sister of the
Society of St. Vincent De Paul, to whom it bore a strong resemblance.
Its Council General asked Ozanam to edit its Annals. The request
was so insistent that he could not possibly refuse. Moreover his
natural inclination for the work was considerable and Ozanam con
tinued it for eight years.

His first article was a Historical Note on the first beginnings of the
Society in 1819 and its extension into two hemispheres. He depicts
the little chamber in Lyons in which holy inspired women prayed side
by side with apostles. The historian tells us their names. He also
indicates the mighty rushing of the wind of the Holy Ghost in this
latter-day Pentecost, levelling every obstacle, kindling hearts, working
miracles and making poor weak human creatures the instruments of
His conquests. "It seems as though that mighty wind is again
beginning to blow over the Christian world. Vocations are becoming
more numerous. Seculars and Regulars are being drawn by an irresist
ible desire for those heroic struggles that amaze the effeminacy of our
days. In a short time it will be easier to find men, ready to work for
souls in all quarters of the world, then the means to carry them thither

steerage or to provide their plainest fare Let us remember

that fact, and if at times we have been selfishly tempted to rest satisfied
with the enjoyment of the benefits conferred by Catholic civilisation,
let us think of the millions who do not yet know of the Redemption
of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ."

In the annual report of 1840, Ozanam formally invites associates
in the splendid images which the Church and the Gospel furnish :
" Christians of Europe, engaged formerly in the work of pious founda
tions, which the storms of our times have demolished, come and take

THE ARCHBISHOP OF COLOGNE 143

your place in this. You are the natural godparents of these infant
peoples awaiting baptism. The holy water is ready ; the Church
stands waiting with the Gospels and the taper in her hands. Hasten
to the sacred meeting- place where the laity are associated with the
priest in the great work of universal redemption. Bring them the
priest whose humble helper you are like those unknown disciples,
who bore the baskets of miraculous bread before the Master, or like
her who wiped His brow bathed in blood, or the Cyrenian who shared
and lightened the burden of His cross on the road to Calvary."

It was in similar, though in still more ardent terms, that, towards
the end of 1837, Ozanam called the Catholic youth of Paris to the
defence of the Church, which was being persecuted by the narrow-
minded Prussian evangelical spirit. They had just learned of the
midnight arrest of the Archbishop of Cologne, Monsignor de Droste
Wischering, in his own palace, and his subsequent imprisonment in
the fortress of Minden, because of his fidelity to Canon Law in the
celebration of mixed marriages. It was the event of the day. The
Pope had pronounced, and European opinion was up in arms. "Are
you not going to do anything in Paris ?" Ozanam wrote to Lallier on
the 7th February, 1838. " I should like a demonstration of Parisian
youth about the Cologne affair. Do you remember the day when
Lacordaire asked God to send us saints ? You are given a Thomas
of Canterbury and you do not welcome him ! Yet it seems to me that
on this occasion the Saracens of rationalism have done us a good turn
and that it is the moment to cry out : "God wills it !"

" But it will be said, of what use ? First, to enkindle conviction in
Catholic youth. I know very well that neither God, nor the Church, nor
the Archbishop stand in need of our support. . . . But useless servants
as we are, we must not be idle servants. Woe to us if we do not seek to
co-operate in those great works which can be accomplished without usT)
When the Saviour was dying on Calvary, he could have had more than
twelve legions of angels, yet He did not wish it. He willed that Simon
the Cyrenian, an obscure man, should help to bear His cross and thus
contribute to the great miracle of the redemption of the world."

Why was Ozanam not in Paris ? After this lively sortie against
the enemy without, Ozanam hastened to shut himself up in his studious
solitude, henceforward absorbed in the one urgent matter, his Degree
of Doctor of Literature and the immediate preparation of his thesis :
Dante and Catholic Philosophy in the i$th Century.

i44 FREDERICK OZANAM

CHAPTER XII.

DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF LITERATURE.
" DANTE AND CATHOLIC PHILOSOPHY." — HIS MOTHER'S DEATH.

1839-

The Italian trip in 1833, which ended pleasantly with a stay in
Florence, had brought Ozanam into close touch with Dante. But
the great poet was for him as yet merely one of those things seen,
as it were, through a glass darkly, which he desired to examine closely.
Two years after his return he expressed himself as follows :

" We do not seem to be able to wander anywhere without leaving
something of ourselves behind, just as the lambs leave some of their wool
hanging on the brambles. I experienced this fatality of our nature
in the short Italian trip which I made two years ago. All the beautiful
things, which I saw there, caused me less joy on finding them than
sorrow on leaving them. I entered Rome tired, I left it in tears.
Rome, Florence, Loretto, Milan, Genoa, have all retained something
of myself. Whenever I think of them I feel that I must return to recover
what was left there."

One of the things but dimly seen, and which was not yet clear to
him, was the great place which Dante occupied not only in his Italian
fatherland, but in the Church itself ; Dante, whose head, crowned
with laurels he saw prominent among the Pontiffs and Doctors in
Raphael's celebrated picture of the Disputation on the Blessed Sacra
ment.

" When," he wrote, " one has visited Rome and realised a long-
cherished hope, when one has ascended, with a feeling of pious interest,
the great staircase of the Vatican and beheld the wonders of all places
and of all ages collected under the hospitable roof of that magnificent
building, one reaches at length a spot which may be called the sanctuary
of Christian Art : Raphael's Galleries."

DANTE AMID THE PONTIFFS 145

" The painter has depicted, in a series of historical and symbolical
frescoes, the greatness and the goodness of Catholicity. There is one
of those frescoes on which the eye rests with special love, whether
because of the magnificence of the subject or of the felicity of execution.
The Blessed Sacrament is represented on an altar, elevated between
Heaven and earth. The Heavens are opened and show the splendour of
the Holy Trinity, many angels, and saints : the earth is represented by
a large gathering of Pontiffs and Doctors. A very remarkable figure
stands out in the middle of one of the groups, remarkable for the
striking personality, with head crowned, not with tiara and mitre,
but with a garland of laurels. With a little effort of memory, one
recognises, in those strong and stern features, Dante Alighieri.

Then one is driven to ask why the poet's figure was introduced
into the centre of that gathering of venerable witnesses and defenders
of faith in the divine mystery, into a picture painted under the eyes
of the Popes and in the very citadel of orthodoxy ?"

Once that problem presented itself to Ozanam's mind it left him
no rest until he had found the explicit solution in the life and work
of the great Florentine. Dante and Ozanam made a compact on
that day.

A literary, philosophical, and historical study which would transport
the writer right into the Middle Ages with its beliefs, saints, institu
tions, manners, poetry, and art, was not displeasing to the young and
enthusiastic disciple of the antiquarian school of 1830. In company
with Montalembert, Rio, Overbeck, Victor Hugo, he was already
engaged hi restoring its forgotten, neglected, or even despised monu
ments. Ozanam wrote to Janmot in poetic terms of the Middle Ages :
" That far off age which gives the effect of the enchanted isles, where
one gathers lotus and quenches thirst in streams, that drown one's
country in oblivion, where one feels captivated by the charm of its feasts,
legends, and traditions, and enthralled by the lavish wealth of its
monuments."

" I feel that my studies on Dante have produced a similar impression
on me as my trip to Rome. The sweet captivation which one*
loves to find in ruins, one likewise finds in memories. What
indeed are memories but other ruins, which are sadder and more
compelling than those covered by moss and ivy ? Is it not as much
a duty for us to delve into the legends and traditions of our forefathers,
as to examine the debris of aquaducts and temples?"

146 FREDERICK OZANAM

There was nothing in that but intellectual interest. What was more
important for Ozanam was the religious interest in a study, which would
offer him splendid matter for the doctrinal and historical exposition
of the action of the Catholic Church in the so-called dark ages, which
he proposed to illumine with true light. That is what definitely
decided him, as he wrote to Janmot as early as November, 1836 :
" I think that I have already told you that one of my theses is on
Dante's Philosophy. That leads me to a close study of the poet and
his period. In endeavouring to solve some of the obscure questions
which are to be met with I continually admire the action of the Popes
in the Middle Ages." So much for history.

But what had escaped notice up to that time in Dante's poem was
his philosophy. What was most neglected, most despised, and con
sequently most unknown, even by Catholics in the Middle Ages, was
scholastic philosophy ; it was considered abstruse, academic, dry, and
barren, and characterised by a subtlety that bordered on puerility.
Now, that philosophy was displayed in Dante's work in all its breadth
and loftiness ; a vast system of ideas embracing all knowledge, divine
and human ; a philosophy culminating in theology ; the wisdom of
nature responding to the wisdom of grace and of eternal glory ;
a never-ending sublime chain linking Heaven and earth, and
binding time to eternity. That is its greatness, that also is its
splendour with Dante. With him the immense system is unfolded in a
poem. The idea is manifested symbolically, incarnate in living
characters. The thoughts are clothed in the richest colours of created
nature, reflected from uncreated nature. We are here face to face
with the rarest of things, a philosophy which is at once poetic, popular
and sound ; a philosophy winged and armed. In Dante it finds ex
pression in the most melodious language in Europe, in a vocabulary
that is understanded of women and children ; its lessons are conveyed
in lyrics. In Dante it frees itself from the formulas of the schools
and loves to mingle in the most intimate mysteries of the heart, as well
as in the noisy squabbles of the market place. Introduced to it
through the medium of the poet, we learn to love its masters, and the
names of Albert the Great, St. Thomas Aquinas, and St. Bonaventure
become beautiful names once more.

" It must be admitted," Ozanam concludes, " that the science of
thinking was well known at that time, when people knew what it is to
believe and to pray. Let us pay homage to that beautiful spring-

DANTE'S POEM 147

time of the human race towards which, in the time of its stormy
manhood, we need to cast our looks."

" Another sentiment," he adds, " sustained us in collating the facts
and thoughts that are to be found ; the sentiment of filial piety. It
furnished flowers to cast on the tombs of our fathers who were
great and good ; it furnished some grains of incense to offer on
the altars of Him, who made them great and good for His own
ends."

" Passing beyond the limits of space and time to enter the tripartite
kingdom of Hell, Purgatory and Paradise which was opened to him by
Death, Dante places the scene of his poem in Infinity," That is true
and yet the action of the poem is human. None of us has ever
visited, save in thought, the threefold place of remorse and damnation,
of repentance and expiation, of mercy and eternal happiness. But
underneath that fiction, under the veil of symbolism and the language
of the Apocalypse, in which Dante's thought is frequently clothed,
palpitates a living reality, man expressed in his full moral existence.
The mystery of the human soul, with its aspirations, its struggles, its
failures, its reverses, its resurrections, with its divine help and eternal
destiny,, that is the spectacle which is unfolded in the course of that
tremendous epic of incidents, episodes, descriptions, and endless
dissertations. They seem to be about to be lost to view, yet in the
end they co-ordinate themselves with that psychology, as the centre
of their unity.

The man in the scene is certainly not an abstraction nor an invention
of romantic fiction. The poem is a life history, one that has been lived,
and lived by him who wrote it. The poet gazed into the abysses of
sin and grief, the depths of expiation and pardon, the heights of re
demption and hope, to recall to his memory his return, after the
time of wandering, to that peace which had been lost by sin ; that
peace which was sought in repentance and found at the feet of the
Christ of Mercy, that peace to which the fair messenger from Heaven
was to restore him for ever ; that messenger whose beloved name itself
suggests at once the idea of happiness.

The Life of Dante, which Ozanam sketches in one of the chapters,
depicts him enamoured from his earliest youth with the purest ideal
of beauty and innocence in the person of a child, who is for him the
symbol of virtue, and who inspires virtue in him : " Those dreams,"
wrote Ozanam, " were heavenly, in which Beatrice appeared radiant ;

148 FREDERICK OZANAM

the desire to find himself passing near her in the street was inex
pressible and timid ; all his happiness lay in a bow or a salute from her ;
his fears and hopes purified his feelings to an extreme degree of delicacy,
and detached them by degrees from sublunary cares. In later years, a
thought of, and a glance from Beatrice were sufficient to restore to
the young Florentine the energy to do good and the power to avoid
evil. Surrounded by her companions, she appeared to him an immortal
who had come down among women to honour their weakness and pro
tect their virtue. Kneeling at the foot of the altar, she appeared to
him to be encircled with the aureola of glory, to be associated with the
beneficent power of the blessed, an advocate for sinners ; prayer then
flowed more readily and more confidently from his lips. When the
noble woman crossed the city, he writes elsewhere, those who saw her
coming were seized with such emotions, that they did not venture to
look up. She veiled herself with humility and modesty, not appearing
to notice their attentions. When she had passed several exclaimed,
" That is not a woman but a beautiful angel from Heaven."

In later years — it is the second and the bad phase of the life —
Dante in exile, when he had no longer the patronage of Beatrice,
sinks and wallows in vice. He confesses to this in his poem. He
depicts himself on the summit of Purgatory prostrate, confounded,
and contrite, when face to face with Beatrice, who makes herself
known to him, and who thus speaks of him in the presence of the
hosts of angels and saints : " This man fell so low, that all means of
salvation were unavailing, save the sight of the damned. That
is why I have come with prayers and tears to him, even to the
gate of death." While she is speaking the guilty one depicts himself
as " humiliated, in tears, downcast, even as a little child, who is being
chastised and who admits his fault."

Nor was that all. In the great Jubilee, at the close of the century
whose splendour he depicted, Dante betook himself to Rome. There,
on his knees at the feet of the mighty power that opens or shuts the
gates of the Kingdom of Heaven, he received absolution with humility
and piety. He describes willingly, one by one, the stages in that
sacrament of penance as so many steps which he ascended in turn.
The Lady of Heaven said to him, " Enter, the door is here !" It was
the gate of mercy. Beatrice would not leave Dante until she had led
him into Paradise."

It is there that the triple pilgrimage beyond the tomb closes in the

DANTE'S POSITION 149

poem. Dante ended his stormy life in penance and in the grace of
God. At the point of death he asked to be clothed in the habit of the
Friars Minor of Ravenna. What is then the foundation, the raison
d'etre, the design and the evolution of the poem ? It is the poem of
penance and of the Redemption.

That is precisely the reason why the apostle loved it, made it first
the foundation of his thesis, and subsequently of his teaching. It
is equally certain that no one has contributed more to rescue Dante
from the oblivion into which the three preceding centuries in France
had cast him. It must be admitted that there is in that poem such
an extraordinary mixture of obscurity and sublimity that one is not
astonished at the antipathy to it exhibited by French culture. It is
the characteristic of the Art of the Middle Ages to be at once childish
and sublime. The Divina Commedia resembles the entrances and
doorways of those cathedrals, where the inspiring and golden-crowned
figures of angels and saints are crowded and crushed with the
monstrous grossness of capitals and gargoyles.

On the other hand, has not Ozanam exaggerated the part which
symbolism plays in the great work of Dante ? If it is true, and very
true, that Dante could represent Christian philosophy in all its
splendour, which was the philosophy of his own time, why seek, there
fore, to make him a rival of Plato and of Aristotle, a forerunner of
Bacon, Descartes, and Leibnitz ? One, naturally asks, if Dante
had in truth foreseen all that ? Did not the young philosopher
credit his hero with a grasp of knowledge and a breadth of mind with
which he had himself been gifted by Providence ?

Ozanam discovered in the proud Florentine patriot an advocate
and a prophet of the coming of democracy. But did he not in that,
rather express his own personal inclinations and convictions ? How
ever that may be, Dante's Catholic Guelph democracy must not be
confounded with the modern democracy crying out " Without God
or Master." Ozanam pressed that point with energy and eloquence :
" Dante did not deify humanity, by seeking to make it self-sufficient,
with no other source of inspiration but reason, with no other law
than its own will. He did not confine it within the vicious circle of
its earthly destiny. He neither elevated nor debased humanity to
that degree. He saw that humanity is not complete here below, and
he looked to the next world where the final appraisement of the Last
Judgment awaited mankind. Standing on Truth, which they were

150 FREDERICK OZANAM

bound to believe, and on Justice, which they were bound to do, he
weighs their works with the measures of Eternity. He points out to
them on the right side and on the left, the places which their virtues
or their vices have earned for them ; at His voice the multitude
separates and flows thro' the gates of Hell or the portals of Heaven.
Thus morality, through the view-point of eternal destiny, enters into
History ; Humanity, humiliated by the law of Death, is raised by the
law of Duty ; if the honour of a proud apotheosis be denied, it is yet
saved from the opprobrium of the destiny of the beasts of the field."

A serious question presented itself which Ozanam could not leave
unanswered. Was the Dante, who is represented as one of the pillars
of Roman Catholic orthodoxy, in reality a precursor and promoter
of the Reformation, in his invective against Rome and the Popes of
his time ? That was the trend of Protestant criticism. In a
chapter on Dante s Orthodoxy Ozanam justifies the poet against
those who claim in vain, and with unseemly haste, to hail in him a
precursor. He does not minimise the denunciations of the exile's
blind anger against those whom he believed to be the enemies of his
country. But he calls in evidence of his orthodoxy the whole life
of the man, the whole work of the poet, which he unceasingly quotes.
Then he adds : " If it is true that Dante inveighed against the Court
of Rome and the Roman Pontiffs, pouring insult on the head of those
whose feet he should have kissed ; if, in the spirit of party faction, he
repeated the calumnies of the rebellious against the Popes, if he failed
to appreciate fully the piety of St. Celestine, the impetuous zeal of
Boniface VIII, the culture and wisdom of John XXII., that was the
result of imprudence and passion, of error and mistake, but it was not
heresy. When that same Boniface VIII, whom he has delivered
over to his poetic vengeance, falls an august victim at the hands
of the fanatical followers of Philip le Bel, Dante then sees in him the
Vicar and the image of Christ crucified for the second time. If he
flagellates cruelly sin in the person of the man, he bows down with
respect before the power of the High Priest. The Pope is for him
always Peter, holding in his hands the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven ;
and the Holy Roman See is for him always the rock upon which God
rests the destiny of the world. The Papacy is a Monarchy by divine
right, to which every other monarchy owes filial honour. The true
Rome, said the poet, is that which is identified with Christ : Quella
Roma, onde Cristo I romano. The Church of Rome, spouse, inter-

DANTE'S ORTHODOXY 151

preter, Secretary of Jesus Christ, is incapable of error or falsehood.
Dante admits her sovereignty over conscience ; he describes with
gratification the sacrament of penance ; he doubts neither the validity
of excommunication, nor the legitimacy of indulgences, nor the satisfy
ing merit of good works. He never wearies of recommending the souls
of the dead to the prayers of the living ; he places his hope in the
intercession of the Blessed Virgin and of the saints. The religious
Orders are eulogised by him in the person of the incomparable St.
Francis of Assisi : " Assisi, whereout a sun arose to illumine the world,
just as the sun itself seems at times to rise out of the mouth of the
Ganges." Also St. Dominic, whom he describes as " the jealous lover
of Christian Faith, gentle to his disciples, terrible to his enemies."

Dante relates that on the threshold of Paradise, St. Peter made him
undergo a regular examination in the fundamental principles of the
Faith, before he would admit him. He states that the Prince of
Apostles was so pleased with his answers that he embraced him thrice.

Lastly, he, whom Protestantism would wish to make a heretic,
bequeathed to posterity a hymn to the Virgin Mary in which he offers
up the groanings of his heart in satisfaction for the evil days he had
lived : 0 Madre di virtute, iu del del donna e del mondo superna, etc.
It is one of the most beautiful poems of homage which the Mother of
God has ever received from the faithful.

Ozanam's thesis was bred and born in trouble. In Paris he had to
carry it by main force through his Law studies, and to defend it, is
addition, against constantly recurring invasions of meetings, speeches,
visits and magazines. He had hopes that, on his return to Lyons,
he would find peace at home in his free time. He had even persuaded
himself that the provincial atmosphere would preserve his individual
ity in thought and style better than the promiscuous literary tone
of the capital. He wrote from Lyons : " I think that, for one who is
of robust mind and who already possesses the necessary knowledge,
work in isolation should have its own advantage ; it should preserve
that characteristic originality which gets destroyed by the contagion,
so to speak, of styles, to which one is inevitably exposed in Paris . . .
The mind and style are more polished among you of Paris, but it is
at the price of their very existence."

On the other hand, if Lyons was a place without distractions, it
was also a place without books or documents of reference : " The Muni
cipal Library is very weak in foreign literature ! For advice and

152 FREDERICK OZANAM

guidance I must rely on my former Professor of Philosophy, the Abbe
Noirot." Add to that a sick mother, family business affairs, canvassing
for the Chair in Law, and preparation for the hypothetical and distant
lectures .... Then why bother about Dante, the thesis, the
Doctorate of Literature, or literature at all ? "I have often asked
myself if anything, other than pride, chained me to unproductive
literature, which perhaps I should have done better to abandon."
But no, it was a useful instrument in the service of God.

On the iyth of May it was finished. Dante was despatched to the
Sorbonne, and Lallier was asked to introduce him to M. Le Clerc
" although the Sorbonne was no stranger to the old poet," wrote the
author to his friend. " It is an established fact that, in his lifetime,
about the year 1230, Dante spent some time in Paris ; that he was
actually present at some lectures of one Sigier — the Cousin of his
time — in the Rue du Fouarre. But it seems to me that the capital
has changed somewhat since then, that the poet has grown very old
indeed and would have great difficulty in finding his way thither.
Add to that the fact, that the present Sorbonne but little resembles
that of the St. Louis period, and that Dante would present himself
rather awkwardly, if alone, at the door of M. Le Clerc, who is not a St.
Thomas of Acquin."

All that was indeed but too true. Yet the Dean at least loved Dante,
for the reason, that Dante was the means of introducing a reference
to his master, Sigier, Sigieri, in the 2ist Volume of L'Histoire lit-
teraire de France. He was, therefore, in favour of the thesis in which
he was mentioned. He very kindly recommended certain alterations
to Ozanam, which necessitated some delay. It was not to be the last.
In the summer of 1838 Ozanam rented for his mother and himself
" a beautiful little house in the Isle of Barbary." It is there that we
must picture him, supporting on his arm his tottering and almost
blind mother, in short walks and prolonged chats by the banks of
the Saone, while his thoughts were wandering with Dante, from Virgil
to Beatrice, from the circles of the Inferno to the visions of the living
rose of the elect of Paradise. He invited his friends there and begged
Lallier especially to come. "On your return from Rouen allow
yourself to drift down the beautiful Saone as far as the Isle of Barbary
which I showed you. There will be room, in the pretty little house
that we have rented, to receive you properly, and there is always a glad
welcome ready for you from all my people. You know also that a

OZANA1VTS THESES 153

little further on, where this river loses its colour and name, yet
another old-standing invitation awaits you. Thus on the swaying
movement of the waters, what with our home and our affection,
what with the welcome of those who know you as well as that of our
conferences who do not know you, you will be able to pass a few days
in our midst. I shall be glad to take you back at the end of the stay,
and to prolong our time together even as far as the capital, which fas
cinates and retains you against our wishes."

It was not merely to enjoy the pleasures of friendship that Ozanam
invited his friend, but still more in the interests of charity and of the
Society of St. Vincent de Paul, to which they both belonged. The
two Lyons Conferences, which he wished to introduce to Lallier, are
already known to us, and we shall have to speak of them again . . .
The only complete and faithful portrait of Ozanam, if it were possible,
would depict him living at the same time his life as a scientist and as
a man of charity, as a Doctor of Laws and an Apostle, a son and a
friend, traversing in sweat and in tears the very paths trod by the
God of the Cross.

It was on the jth January, 1839, after having spent several months
in Paris putting the finishing touches to his theses, that Ozanam was
called upon to sustain them. The title of the Latin theses was : "De
frequenti apud veteres poetas heroum ad inferos descensu : of the fiction
of the descent of heros into Hell frequently met with in classical Poets."
It was dedicated to his father.* The thesis in French was entitled :
De La Divine Comedie et de la Philosophic de Dante. It was dedicated
to M. de Lamartine, to M. Ampere, junior, and to the Abbe Noirot,
his former Professor of Philosophy.

The hearing of these was surrounded with unusual ceremony.
In the hall was a crowded audience containing many students. At
the Examining Board were seated no less than nine Professors. The
whole Faculty was present. The President, M. Le Clerc, presided,
Messieurs Saint-Marc-Girardin, Jouffroy, Damiron, Guignaut, Patin,
Lacretelle and Fauriel. Messrs Cousin and Villemain, who had ceased
lecturing since 1830, came and took their place at the Examiners

* Paris, Bailly, 1839. The following is the dedication: D.O.M. — Et memoriae
aeternae — Patris amantissimi — Joannis Antonii Francisci Ozanam — Christiana
fides, pauperum carriate publicae utilitatis studio commendatissimi — Filius
maerens — Humanarum disciplinarum quarum semina ab eo susceperat — fructus
minium seros — D.D.D.

154 FREDERICK OZANAM

table. They were all renowned, some even illustrious. It was indeed
an exceptional Examining Board.

The candidate was a young man of extreme modesty and diffidence.
But he was neither nervous nor fearful, for he knew that Truth was
on his side and that his duty was to defend it. The difficulties of
examination and of cross-question, the anxiety caused by speaking in
public sharpened, rather than confused, his faculties. We have heard
him admit to a friend that the spoken rather than the
written word, the sound of a voice, was able to elevate and inspire
him. He was indeed an orator.

M. de Lacretelle, who, in spite of his age, continued to be called
Lacretelle the Young, Professor of History in the Faculty since 1809,
was one of the examiners. He was at this time 74 years of age, and,
he only resigned the Chair when 87. He asked Ozanam the following
question : " What were the great names in the French Language and
Literature in the i6th century ?" The candidate in his answer placed in
the forefront St. Francis de Sales ; then, in chronological order and
with their respective characteristics, Rabelais, Michel Montaigne,
Charron, Etienne Pasquier, etc. The old Professor, who had probably
never read St. Francis de Sales, at once objected to the priority given
to the Bishop. Ozanam gave his reasons. M. de Lacretelle raised
further objections which were immediately answered by the brilliant
and well equipped disputant. The discussion grew warm. It cen
tred around the convictions and the virtues of the Savoyard Bishop,
Churchman and Literateur. Frederick v/as now on his strongest
ground ; on philology and philosophy in turn, on doctrine and litera
ture. Then he traced the origin of the French Language, its change
in the I5th century, its sources in Greek, Latin, Germanic idioms, and
their primitive derivation from the Oriental Languages. All that
was elaborated by the candidate with such force of argument and such
aptness of quotation, that victory lay with the Bishop of Geneva.
The old Professor was completely silenced and stopped abruptly,
having nothing to expect from the audience, but the respect due to his
grey hairs. The audience was completely on the side of the young
candidate.

The greatest success of the day was the argument on Dante and
his philosophy. Ozanam was full of this subject after six years of
study. At one part of the discussion, he spoke with such elevation
of thought and beauty of language that M. Cousin broke in on the

PROFESSOR OF LAW 155

argument and exclaimed : "Ah ! Monsieur Ozanam, that is the height
of eloquence." The audience answered with loud and prolonged
applause. "It was not alone a success," said Pere Lacordaire, " it
was a revelation." The sombre figure of Dante, whom he had called
forth from the I3th century, with his triple crown of Poet, Doctor and
Exile, had awakened his own genius. The Sorbonne had never seen
such a brilliant examination.

Ozanam's letters do not mention one word of all this. He dis
appeared silently the following day. The state of his mother's
health recalled him.

Let us say at once that Ozanam's answer to that applause was to
endeavour to do still better, by giving a permanent form to his thesis
in a complete volume entitled : Dante or Catholic Philosophy in the
i^th Century : " My thesis on Dante has grown into a volume," he
wrote to a friend, " and if I do not stop I fear it may grow into another.
You know by that who is talking." When the work was published
it was immediately translated into English and German, and appeared
simultaneously in four different versions in Italian.

The brilliant success of his thesis had its immediate effect on public
opinion in Lyons. The Municipal Council appointed Ozanam, by
36 votes to 24, to the Professorship of Commercial Law. This
appointment required to be confirmed by the Minister for Educa
tion, who was M. Cousin. Still under the influence of the thesis
and the eloquence which he had applauded, M. Cousin at once offered
to the newly-appointed Doctor of Literature the Chair of Philosophy
in the College of Orleans. Ozanam had then a choice of posts. Even
here, in Lyons," he wrote, " it is agreed that my future prospects
are on the banks of the Loire. I too, was pleased with the chance
of a purely intellectual career, with the possibility of a life which
would be more detached and peaceful, and which would have, in addi
tion, the advantage of being near Paris. But as against all that, I
foresaw greater dependence, loneliness in a city where I am unknown :
above all the necessity of leaving mother for ten months every
year, at the risk of a similar shock to that which happened on the 12 th
May, 1837. I therefore answered M. Cousin, thanking him very much
for the honour he had done me by his offer of the Chair of Philosophy
in Orleans, but regretting that family reasons obliged me to declare
in favour of the Chair in Lyons."

Alas ! his mother was spared to him for only a few brief days.

156 FREDERICK OZANAM

Ozanam had to go to Paris in the month of August and spend some days
there in connection with those same family affairs. On his return
on the I4th, he found her in a critical state, which ended fatally.
She died on the I4th October. " The length of her illness made me
fear," he wrote to Lallier, " lest in losing her mental faculties, she
might fail in the supreme sacrifice before its consummation. That
trial was spared her. Her energy rallied in her last moments. Christ
descending for the last time into the heart of this well-beloved servant
gave her the strength necessary for the supreme battle."

" She remained almost three days calm and serene, murmuring
prayers, and replying in words of inexpressible maternal kindness to
our caresses. Then came the fatal night. It was I who was at her
bedside. I suggested in tears to my poor mother the Acts of Faith,
Hope and Charity, which she had taught me to babble in my youth.
About one o'clock in the morning a change took place that terrified
me. I called my eldest brother, who was sleeping in the next room.
Charles heard us and got up, the servants also hastened to the room.
We knelt around the bed. Alphonse recited the prayers for the dying,
to which we gave the responses in tears. Every religious consolation
was once more received. The remembrance of a stainless life, the good
works which by their number and their difficulty had hastened her
end, three sons preserved in the faith amid storm and stress, and all
at her bedside by a providential dispensation ; finally the hope of
glorious immortality, all served to dispel the terror, to illumine the
darkness of Death. Neither convulsions nor agony supervened, but
a gentle sleep, which left her, as it were, smiling ; a gentle breathing
which faded slowly ; the moment came when it too ceased, and we
rose up orphans .... Happy is the man to whom God has given
a holy mother !"

" That loving memory will never leave me. In my present loneliness
the thought of that edifying scene sustains and elevates me. In the
consideration of the extreme shortness of life, and of the separation
of those whom death parts, the temptations of pride vanish and the
evil passions of the flesh are subdued. All my desires are resolved
into one, to die like my mother !"

Madame Ozanam died like her husband in the service of the poor.
She had devoted her whole time to them since her children had no
longer need of her care. Even as Frederick had been edified at find
ing from his father's papers, that a third of his patients had been free,

HIS MOTHER'S DEATH 157

he was now edified to find among his mother's papers, notes for the
religious instruction of the poor. She had them for the use of the
Ladies' Association of Charity, whose President and model she was,
in their visits to the sick poor.

Ozanam now saw " united in one and the same happiness in
God him and her whom he had seen united on earth in the same works
and the same trials ! May I," he said, " continue in thought, in faith,
and in virtue, that communion with them which nothing was able to
interrupt, and may their death not make any other change in our
family than the addition to it of two saints."

But he had no longer the charm of that bodily presence which was a
sort of divinity for him. He grieves in these terms to a friend,
M. Reverdy : " What a loss for the religious interests of my soul 1
Gentle exhortation, powerful example, a fervour which warmed my
lukewarm spirit, a source of encouragement which re-inforced my
strength. Moreover she, whose first instruction had given me the
Faith, was the living representative of our Holy Church, who is also
our mother. Sometimes I seem to feel, even as the disciples did,
after the Ascension of our Lord, that something divine has been taken
from my side ... Oh ! Beseech our Lord, that He would send to
me, as he sent to His orphaned disciples, the Holy Spirit, the
Consoler, the Paraclete. I have not a great mission to accomplish as
they had, and I do not look for the miraculous gifts, which He
lavished on them. I only ask for the strength to finish my pilgrim
age of a few years, or perhaps of a few days, and to have such an
end as my holy mother had."

She had not in reality left him. The continual thought of his mother
became, as it were, a kind of habitual intercourse between his soul and
hers. Two years later, on the 3ist January 1842, when consoling his
friend Falconnet, who had a like cause for mourning, he confided
to him this habit of spiritual companionship. This letter is alto
gether admirable.

" Face to face with death, in the excess of grief, every thought of
consolation iseemed impossible, nay, insulting to her memory. Yet
the time soon came when I began to feel that I was not alone. Some feel
ing of infinite calm passed into my soul. It was an assurance that I
had not been abandoned. It was a beneficent, though invisible,
presence. It was as if a beloved soul had brushed me with her wings
in passing. Sometimes I seemed to recognise the footsteps, the voice,

158 FREDERICK OZANAM

the breath of my mother. Thus, when an ardent inspiration enkindled
my failing strength, I could not but believe that it was always she.

" Even to this day I have that feeling. There are moments of sudden
joy, as if she were at my side. There are especially times of maternal
and filial intercourse, when I am in direst need. On such occasions,
I weep more than at the time of her death, but an inexpressible peace
is mingled with my grief. When I am good, when I have done some
thing for the poor whom she so loved, when I am at peace with God,
Whom she had so well served, I see her smiling on me from afar. Some
times, when I pray, I seem to hear her joining in my prayer, just as
we used to pray together at night at the foot of the Crucifix."

" Lastly — and this I should not confide in anyone but you— when
I have the happiness to receive Holy Communion, when our Saviour
comes to visit me, it seems to me that she follows Him into my poor
heart, even as she so often followed Him in the Holy Viaticum, into
the rooms of the poor. Then I firmly believe in the actual presence
of my mother by my side."

That admirable letter concludes with the assurance that he is still
the object of her solicitude in Heaven. " Is there any other glory for
mothers on this earth than their children, have they any other happiness
than ours ? What is Heaven itself for them if we are not there ? I am,
then, convinced that we still occupy their thoughts, that they
continue to live for us, there as well as here, that they have not changed
save in the direction of greater power and greater love."

159

CHAPTER XIII.

LECTURES ON THE LAW OF COMMERCE.
HIS VOCATION.

THE CLOISTER OR THE WORLD. — PERE LACORDAIRE. — PROTESTANTISM
AND LIBERTY. — OPENING OF THE COURSE OF THE LAW OF COMMERCE.
— POST-GRADUATE CONCURSUS IN LITERATURE.
1839-1840.

We find Ozanam stunned by the death of his mother, uncertain
in his plans, wandering in his paths. He was looking backward. He
seemed to have been moving for the last five or six years from illusion
to illusion. Now, when he had attained the goal, there was no one
alive whose wish made him desire it. Whither was God leading him ?
What did He want of him ? It was now that the vital, the sublime
question of his vocation presented itself to him in anxiety and torture.
Would God be served by him in the cloister or in the world ? Let us
hear him on this theme in one of his letters :

" When the time came," he writes, " to choose a profession, as my
parents were still young, I chose the Bar to please them. I had
scarcely been called when my poor father leaves me and cannot enjoy
the fruit of his sacrifices. I then try a new career in order to meet
the financial necessities of my mother, whom I cannot leave. When
at the end of two years I obtain my appointment, my mother is not
there to benefit by what I had underaken for her sake. That double
disappointment overwhelms me, upsets all my plans, and throws me
into frightful uncertainty as to my vocation, the direction of which
I do not see."

Ten months elapsed between his appointment to the Chair of Com
mercial Law and the opening of the Course of Lectures in December,
1839. During that interval invitations came to him from Paris.
Montalembert would have been glad to attach him to the editorial

160 FREDERICK OZANAM

department of I'Univers religieux, which was then sinking under
a load of debt. Ozanam shrank from attaching himself to what he
called " the yoke of journalism." Montalembert insisted : "I beg
of you to give us at least some fragments of your works, some chips
of the statue which you are hewing out. I demand, as a friend, that
service from a brother in arms, on whose sympathy I rely, as you have
a right to rely on me. Good-bye. I leave that matter to your con
science and your heart."

It is also the duty of writing that Lacordaire imposes on his young
friend about the same time. ' ' You must not give up the pen. Writing
is, indeed, a hard calling, but the Press has become so powerful that
we cannot abandon it. Let us write, not for glory, but for Jesus Christ.
Let us be crucified on our pen. Even if no one will read what you
write in one hundred years' time, what matter ? The drop of water
which is lost in the sea has contributed to the making of the river,
and the river will not die ... As for you, nothing that you have
written need discourage you. You have a nervous, brilliant style,
you have the learning to support it. I implore of you to work, and
if I were the director of your conscience, I should place it on you as an
obligation."

Ozanam therefore was to write. He was to contribute to the Catholic
Press, at least intermittently. It was about this time that he pub
lished a series of articles in the Univers on Protestanisme dans ses
rapports avec la liberte, proving that Protestantism in fact, and from
its very nature, played its part in the oppression and tyranny over
conscience, wherever the independence of the Catholic faith did not
defend it. That article appeared at the moment when the im
prisonment of the Archbishop of Cologne caused a flutter not only
on the banks of the Rhine, but in every political centre in Europe.
Ozanam had a good opportunity of demonstrating by an up-to-date
example the offensive alliance of heresy and tyranny against the
Church, who was the sole mother and guardian of true liberty.

Ozanam was also to lecture. He was already engaged in the rapid
preparation of his course of Commercial Law, and he had ideas
of enlarging that sphere of instruction by more liberal studies.
" If God gives me life and courage," he wrote, "and if He assigns
the legal profession as my vocation, I should, in my own opinion, do
well to bring my personal work and my public duties into harmony.
A Philosophy of Law and a History of Law, treated from the Christian

HIS VOCATION 161

standpoint, would fill a vast void in science and would occupy the rest
of my life."

But would studies in Literature, Philosophy, and Jurisprudence
suffice to fill the life and satisfy the heart of the man, who, in the same
letter, assigned to young men the duty of national regeneration, the
reconciliation of the classes, and the triumph of the justice and charity
of Christ in the world ? Would the teaching of Commercial Law, even
if humanised, elevated, and extended, admit of such possibilities ?

Ozanam felt himself called to apostleship, by every impulse of nature
and grace. He came from a country that was well known for orators.
He possessed in a very marked degree the gift of fluent speech, and
his speech was admittedly more moving than his writing. His true
place was not at the Bar, but either in Parliament or in the Professor's
Chair. How much more in the latter, for his speech, though lay, had
already the sound of the Sacred Word ! He was, above all, by the
grace of God, an apostle. He had the apostle's zeal, ardour, charity,
and tenderness with which to overcome every difficulty. He was
equally consumed by the desire to preach the truth and to save souls.

A high call from Heaven seemed therefore to come to him, through
his piety, through his tender love of Jesus Christ, and through his
desire to imitate Him in his perfection. It came to him through the
immaculate purity of his whole life, and through the high ideal which
he held of such perfect purity in a young man. For example, he had
written a few months previously to dissuade Lallier from early marriage.
Lallier was one year his junior : " My dear friend, to unfold my whole
thoughts to thee, is virginity a virtue for women alone ? Is it not,
on the contrary, that which constitutes one of the chief glories of the
Humanity of our Saviour ? Is it not that which He cherished especially
in His well-beloved disciple ? Is it not the choicest bloom in the garden
of the Church ? Do you not feel pain at seeing it fade before the
noontide hour ? Would you not be glad to carry it to Heaven, if
you had been called thither in the years preceding maturity ?"

While the matter of his appointment to the Chair of Law was under
consideration in 1837 he placed the problem before himself of a life
in the world or elsewhere : " It seems to me," he wrote on the 5th
October, " that the success or failure of this affair, will decide whether
I am to live in the world, or whether I shall quit it as soon as the course
of events has set me free ? You will thus understand the boldness
of my dreams and the sacred soil over which they are hovering ! I

L

162 FREDERICK OZANAM

do indeed desire the lot of those who devote themselves altogether
to God and humanity."

What religious Order was the object of that holy desire ? Circum
stances fixed the direction. On the Qth February the Abbe Lacordaire
acquainted Ozanam of his intention of entering the Dominican Order.
He informed him of the date of his departure for Rome, and of his
arrival and stay in Lyons. He asked him to reserve three places for
himself and two friends in the diligence : " We shall leave Paris on
Thursday the yth March, the feast of St. Thomas Acquinas. We shall
arrive in Lyons on Sunday the loth. We shall leave for Milan on
Tuesday the I2th by the Bonafous diligence, three, not more, in num
ber. I shall be delighted to see you again, you and all your friends.
I hope that you will help us to make the pilgrimages that every fervent
Catholic should make in Lyons."

The Abbe Lacordaire's journey to Rome had been preceded by his
Memoire sur le Retablissement de I'Ordre des Freres Precheurs en France,
which had been also a voice calling to Ozanam's spirit. The
re-establishment was a revival from out the Middle Ages, that same
I3th century that Ozanam had glorified a short time previously.
During Ozanam's student years in Paris, the Abbe Lacordaire had
been not only one of his models, but also one of the most lovable per
sonages in his life. He called him the " Peter the Hermit " of the
new religious crusade. He hastened therefore, to gather together the
young men of the Lyons Conferences to listen to that eloquent voice,
for, alas ! perhaps the last time.

One who was present records that " it was a solemn and a touching
meeting. Lacordaire himself was deeply affected, and showed it
in his address. He spoke simply and familiarly as a brother to brothers.
He unfolded the aim of his work, which was not yet fully understood.
He spoke of St. Dominic and of the mission of the Friar Preachers,
whose Rule he was going to embrace. He urged the necessity of re
calling the Religious Orders to France. He expressed especially his
friendship for the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, the birth of which
he had witnessed. He concluded by asking their prayers for himself
and for his young companions, whom, it was said, he had saved from
Carbonarism. Hippolyte Requedat, one of them, was by his side.
Such an address and such a sight were never to leave the hearts of
the young men present, and every eye was wet with tears."

This interview sent a ray of light and hope into Ozanam's heart.

LACORDAIRE AND OZANAM 163

A short time after he had arrived in Rome and had been clothed in
the habit of St. Dominic, Pere Lacordaire wrote to his young friend
a letter full of pleasant news, telling him of the welcome of the Holy
Father, of the happiness of his vocation and of his new life. He made
no allusion to the possibility of a like grace for his correspondent.
His discretion was wise. Ozanam finished a letter on the 26th August,
in reply to the great novice in Rome, with the following overtures :
" I feel more than ever the need for such religious guidance as would
compensate for my weakness and free me from my responsibilities.
To speak quite frankly, when I behold the illness of my mother making
sad progress, and when the possibility of such a terrible loss presents
itself to my mind, I do not see any further reason why I should remain
in a position, to which a sense of duty alone holds me. It is then
that the uncertainty of my vocation becomes more disquieting than
ever. I commend to the charity of your prayers the ulterior suffer
ing with which I am long troubled. If God should deign to call
me to His service, I do not know of any army in which I should serve
with greater pleasure than yours." In reference to which, he " desired
to see in advance the Rule of the Friar Preachers to help, in con
junction with the advice of his confessor, in making up his mind in
the matter."

In a reply dated 2nd October Lacordaire, not being able to forward
the text of the Rule, described its spirit and aim : preaching and reli
gious knowledge the means : prayer, mortification of the senses and study :
much comprised in a few words : "As soon as we shall have a novitiate,
a week spent among us will tell you more than a dozen volumes." He
spoke of the complete observance of the Rule to which he and his
brothers have bound themselves : " When we become religious, it
is with the intention of being wholeheartedly so." He concluded with
these words : " Kindest regards and best wishes, coupled with the ardent
desire of one day addressing you as Brother and Father."

Ozanam's mother died within a fortnight of the date of that letter.
There is a short reference to it in some lines, dated the I2th October.
Ozanam wrote that " his mother's death threw him into a state of
doubt and uncertainty about his vocation that was torture " ; and
added simply : " I received the day before yesterday a letter from the
Abbe Lacordaire. He continues to be pleased with the Order of St.
Dominic and is full of glorious hope."

We must now pass on two months later to Christmas, to find a fur-

164 FREDERICK OZANAM

ther mention of the idea of a religious life ; but now the reference is
less hopeful. The following lines are addressed to Lallier : " The
Abbe Lacordaire will be back in France in a few months. If former
inclinations have developed into a genuine vocation I shall try to
follow it. My difficulties are very great."

The last reference occurs in the following spring : " I prefer to wait.
I do indeed owe a year's uninterrupted mourning to my mother's
memory. That will give me an opportunity of seeing the Abbe Lacor
daire on his return from Rome, and of making doubly sure if Provi
dence deigns to open the portals of the Dominican Order to me. During
that period I desire, by more religious conduct and more austere
habits, to win some right to guidance from on high, some control
over my passions here below. I ask for my friends' prayers in matters
of such critical importance."

At the close of the year's mourning, reflection, the course of events,
and the assurance of the Abbe Noirot, that he was not fitted for a
monastic life, as well as the idea of a great personal lay mission, decided
Ozanam to remain in the world. The most weighty of the many
private and domestic reasons which held him back was, that he was
not morally free to enter religion, as he had contracted an indissoluble
bond with the Society of St. Vincent de Paul. It was to it that
he was to devote himself, it was for it that he was to remain in the
world, to organise and extend it in the secular domain, in which he
had brought it into being. A work of apostolate, but of lay apostolate,
which was also sacred, and the abandonment of which would be treason ;
more particularly at the moment when he, though distant from Paris,
was still the guiding spirit and the driving force.

It was indeed the Society of St. Vincent de Paul that Ozanam put
before Pere Lacordaire, in answer to the invitation which the latter
gave him, to try the novitiate at la Quercia : " The little Society of
St. Vincent de Paul sees its ranks extending in a most surprising
way. A new conference has been formed of the pupils of the
Normal and Polytechnic schools ; fifteen young men, about one third
of that college of the University, asked to be allowed as a privilege
to spend two hours every Sunday, their only free day, engaged with
God and His poor. Paris will have fourteen Conferences this coming
year. There will be an equal number in the provinces. The member
ship counts more than one thousand Catholics, who are eager to press
on to the intellectual crusade, which you are preaching." If Pere

PROGRESS OF THE SOCIETY 165

Lacordaire was indeed the Peter the Hermit of the Crusade, was not
Ozanam its Godfrey de Bouillon ?

Ozanam was able to bear witness a little later, in the year 1840,
to an increase which doubled the membership just quoted : "On the
second Sunday after Easter, one of the feasts of the Society, finding
myself in Paris, I was privileged to see it assembled in the fulness of
its development. I saw gathered together in its meeting hall more
than 600 members, and that number did not exhaust the total member
ship in Paris. The main body is composed, it is true, of poor students
joined by some of those in high social position. I rubbed against a
Peer of France, a Deputy, a Councillor of State, several generals, and
distinguished authors. I counted 25 pupils out of 75 of the Normal
School, 10 of the Polytechnic, one or two of the Staff school. In the
morning, upwards of 150 members received Holy Communion at the
foot of the Shrine of our holy patron. Correspondence was received
from more than 15 cities in France, which possess flourishing con
ferences. An almost equal number have been established this year.
We number now nearly 2,000 young men, working in this peaceable
crusade of Catholic charity."

Ozanam expressed not only his joy at such wonderful progress,
but also a sense of the responsibility which this charitable activity
would place on the shoulders of him and his colleagues, " of becoming
mediators between the two camps of society, of counselling resigna
tion in the one and mercy in the other. The word of command should
be : Reconciliation and love."

In Lyons, the very difficulties which the activities of the two con
ferences had to encounter, were a sufficient reason why he should
not abandon the struggle, however inefficient he might regard himself
as leader : " I perceive quite well," he wrote, " that I require an
amount of energy and of freedom of mind, which neither my business
nor my temperament confers, to fulfil all my duties. Nevertheless,
conditions exist which prevent me from resigning a presidency, even if
I fill it badly." Those conditions were such as forbid a commander
to desert on the field of battle.

The winter of 1840 drew those bonds tighter by the very necessities
of the laborious task. " The extraordinary needs of this winter,"
he wrote, " have multiplied the activities of our members. We are
progressing in the art of dispossessing the rich for the benefit of the
poor. Many of our members have offered their services to help young

166 FREDERICK OZANAM

discharged prisoners. That best of men, La Perriere, is engaged in
founding a Preventive Home. But how paltry are those efforts, face
to face with a population of 60,000 workers, demoralised by want and
by the spread of false doctrines ! Freemasonry and republicanism
exploit the misery and the anger of the suffering multitude. God
alone knows what future awaits us, if Catholic charity does not inter
vene in time to stop this slave war at our very gates."

A little later Ozanam obtained the honour and encouragement of
a fiery cross for the Conference. It came from Monsignor Dupuch,
Bishop of Algiers, " who sets souls on fire." Two months later " the
circulation of good literature among the soldiers, and the caring of
young apprentices is going on splendidly." But what most of all
rejoiced his Christian heart was the piety which Lyons displayed in the
processions of Corpus Christi: "Lyons is completely in the odour of
sanctity these days," he wrote in June. " We have just completed
our processions, which were magnificent. They have had a splendid
reception from the people."

A general intellectual movement developed in Lyons pari passu
with the movement of piety and charity. Ozanam described it to
Lacordaire in the following terms : — "A happy change is taking place
here in the minds of men. The three faculties of Theology, Science
and Literature, which have been established lately, have awakened,
even with their imperfect instruction, the taste for speculative studies,
which the material preoccupations of our fellow-citizens seemed to
have stifled. The number of the clergy is increasing who perceive
that virtue, without scientific training, will not suffice for the priestly
ministry."

The nomination of Ozanam to the Chair of the Law of Commerce
fell in with this general intellectual movement. It furnished matter
for the following closing lines of his answer to Lacordaire : "As for
me, a simple witness of so many events full of hope for the future,
here I am, settled in the post which I had long desired. I am
Professor of the Law of Commerce and I revel in a work which
attaches me to Lyons, and which does not prevent the gratification
of my unfortunate taste for philosophical and literary studies. I
am always afraid of spending time in those pursuits which I could
employ more quietly and more surely for my own salvation, and in
the service of my neighbour." Were not those last words a regretful
farewell to the cloister, his Paradise Lost ?

OPENING LECTURE 167

It was on the i6th December, 1839 that Professor Ozanam delivered
his opening lecture of the Commercial Law Course, with a success
which he communicated to his dear friend, Pessonneaux, in the fol
lowing terms : — "It would appear that the course of lectures in the
Law of Commerce is likely to succeed. An immense crowd attended
the opening lecture. Doors and windows were broken. Even then
the hall continued to overflow, and it holds 250. I allowed myself
any historical and philosophical digression that the subject permitted,
and I did not fail at the same time to raise a laugh wherever possible ;
as de Maistre says, one makes the other go.'

It was, indeed, as a philosopher and a historian that he sketched in
his first lecture the subject matter of the course. He outlined the
general idea, the different view points and the spirit which should
guide the study of the subject. He did not fail in the Christian duty
of placing the Law of God at the source of all justice, the acid test
of the just and unjust. " When therefore jurisprudence refers us to
Moral Law as supreme, we shall not be surprised. We shall consult
that Law alone which, from the dawn of the world, has visited man in
the secret recesses of his conscience, and which for 1800 years, being
promulgated anew with added solemnity, continues to direct un
flinchingly every development of modern civilisation."

Of all the noble emotions which dwelt in the soul of Ozanam, the
one, which he succeeded in evoking on that first day, was civic
pride in the sketch which he gave of the commercial supremacy of
Lyons in the early ages. But what he came to teach was, neither
history, nor philosophy, but Law, the Law of Commerce, not merely
in theory, but in its actual positive practical application.

Such was indeed clear. The first year's course of forty seven lectures
and notes have come down to us. They have been published, thanks
to M. Theophile Foisset, advocate in the Court of Appeal in Dijon,
and they amazed that eminent jurisconsult. " When the young
Professor of 26 years of age occupied the Chair of Law, which had just
been founded for him, he was equipped at all points, not only in philo
sophy and history, but in the positive theory of that part of know
ledge, which it was his duty to teach. He was equally at home in
the jurisprudence of legal judgments. But fully alive to the true work
of a professor he did not lose himself in interminable discussions on
debateable points. He preferred to enunciate principles rather than
doubts, to instil rules of Law, to indicate the wisdom in Law rather

168 FREDERICK OZANAM

than to initiate his audience into the double scandal — those are his
own words — of the obscurity of Law and the inconsistency of legal
judgments. What elevation and what breadth of mind in those
notes ; what an extended range of vision over the broad outlines of
the subject ! The true Ozanam is to be found there, his scientific
erudition, his penetrating mind, his true heart, his lofty conscience,
even some flashes of his eloquence. All is present, just as the fruit
is in the flower."

Ozanam was not so laudatory when speaking of his first lectures,
and of the reception which they had received. " Happily for me, the
friendship which busies itself in ensuring success, the respect of a large
number of fellow-citizens for the name of my father, and, above all
and beyond all God, who tempers the wind to the shorn lamb, spared
me the humiliation of failure. There was nothing wanting to success,
but the absence of those for whose happiness I had so long desired it."
At the same time Ozanam, well in advance of University ideas,
wrote in 1840 in le Contemporain an important memoir on Special
Higher Instruction. He insisted that changes in social and economic
conditions demanded such higher teaching for young men intended
for industry and commerce, as would correspond to the traditional
classical education available for the liberal professions. " That would
mean," in his noble words, " that industry would receive formally
the consecration of Science ; without leaving the position in the social
scale assigned to it by God, it would mean rising from villeinage
and becoming ennobled by a public alliance with higher intellectual
discipline." M. Augustin Cochin drew attention later to the precocious
wisdom and profound practical common sense of those views, which
- were inspired by the desire for the uplifting of the masses : " Ozanam's
desires and views have forestalled the policies of governments and of
ministers. He is a precursor."

While giving himself to Law, because his duty lay there, Ozanam
did not surrender himself wholly. He could not be unmindful that,
in nominating him to that Chair on the 6th July 1839, M. Cousin,
Minister for Education, had added the following lines : " I should have
liked to have seen you in my regiment, but I do not despair. I am
sure, in any case, that, with me or without me, you will always love
and serve true philosophy. Do not altogether forget me, for you will
always find a friend in me.'

He wrote as follows, after the death of Ozanam's mother, on the

CHAIR OF FOREIGN LITERATURE 169

8th of January 1840 : " You are now freer, you will find me when you
want me. Let me know what you are doing, your work, your business,
and the present state of the good cause, Philosophy, in Lyons. Kind
est regards and best wishes."

M. Soulacroix, the Rector of the Lyons Academy, equally kind and
sympathetic, who was well aware of Ozanam's preference for Litera
ture, but who, on the other hand, was very anxious to retain his ser
vices in the city, had thought of a plan to bind him more closely to
Lyons. That was by assigning to him, in addition to his municipal
course of the Law of Commerce, the Chair of Foreign Literature in
the Faculty of Arts, which had just been founded. It was rilled by
Edgar Quinet, but he was nominated for the College of France. In
this way the dryness of Law would be relieved by the charm of polite
literature, and the modesty of the salary of one of the Chairs would
be made good by the added remuneration of the other.— " That would
be plurality of office," Ozanam explained to his friend, " does not
the word scandalise you ? If only the head and heart would stand
the strain ! Also would the Minister agree ?"

Ozanam wrote about the matter to Jean-Jacques Ampere on the
2ist February, 1840. He informed him, whom he as yet addressed
formally, of the excellent reception and results of the first seventeen
lectures on the Law of Commerce. He admitted that " natural
instinct and his own tastes enkindle other ambitions." But in order
to live he was obliged to establish a connection and to fling himself
into business matters, renouncing all thought of intellectual work —
a bad passion, perhaps, but one which he could not hope to cure."

He wrote : " M. Quinet is leaving us at Easter. The Chair of Foreign
Literature, popularised by his genius, is now sufficiently established
in the public favour to risk the introduction of lectures which will
be less brilliant but perhaps more informing." A child of Italy by
birth, knowing German, reading Spanish and English fairly well,
holding the attention of a sympathetic public, what could Ozanam
lack to replace Quinet adequately in the Chair of Foreign Literature ?
Nothing, but Quinet's revolutionary views and irreligious tendencies.
Was that the difficulty about his nomination ? Was it a Christian
that was opposed ! Ozanam wrote : " I know that they have can
vassed strongly against me. My political views, my religious con
victions have been quoted against me. Is it possible that those con
victions would close the doors of the Faculty of Arts to me ! Frankly,

170 FREDERICK OZANAM

I am beginning to fear what I could not hitherto have believed
possible."

But on the question of religious faith, the Christian declares himself
absolutely immovable at all costs. " Very well," continues his letter
to M. Ampere, " if a decree of ostracism is to be pronounced against
Catholics, it will be well to proclaim it once and for all. They
will be warned in good time, and I shall no longer follow the will of
the wisp of foolish illusions. Scrutinising more closely my aptitudes
and my hidden desires, I shall either surrender myself to the ordinary
duties of daily life, endeavouring to forget the dreams of deluded
youth ; or if I do really feel within me the call to an intellectual voca
tion that will not be denied, then I shall seek in the cloisters of St.
Dominic or St. Benedict, what God and humanity never refuse to
those who labour in their service, liberty and bread. Many have
already made that choice, and it must not be said that they have de
serted the sacred post of public life. They cannot be accused of fleeing
from the work of the Universities because that work was distasteful.
When one knocks at a portal and the portal is not raised, or is raised
in such a way that one cannot enter without stooping, it is not to be
wondered at that one remains without."

Were the contents of that letter brought under the notice of the
Minister by Ampere ? Whether they were or not, his assurance on
the subject was quite formal : " You can count on me. When you
will be able to return you will find me." Ozanam was at that time
in Paris. He saw M. Cousin, who received him very graciously,
invited him to dinner, made himself acquainted with his plans for
the future, and promised him M. Quinet's chair for the following year.
But he imposed one condition, viz., that he would present himself for
a competition which he had just established for the Chair of Foreign
Literature in the Sorbonne. The date for it was fixed for September.
Ozanam had thus only five or six months for preparation ; his competi
tors had already been working for it for more than a year ! " Oh !
it is not," said Cousin, " that you can hope for success ; but I am
anxious that the first competition should be brilliant, and that the
flower of the young men of genius should compete. Do me that favour!
You will afterwards be appointed to Lyons, no matter what the result."

It is nothing short of a miracle that in less than six months Ozanam
managed to cull the flowers of three classical and four foreign literatures.
It caused him pain " that he was only able to pass by such admirable

THE CONCURSUS 171

things at full speed." He had to pluck with a hasty hand the per
fection of poetic beauty even at the risk of crushing or spoiling it.
He was forced to make a bunch instead of a wreath. He sacrificed
a trip to Switzerland and to Germany, which he had long looked
forward to, for those exhausting studies. He laid on himself the extra
burden of eighteen hours work a day, without prejudice to his own
course or to his other works. " All my minutes are so crowded," he
confessed, " that I run the risk of losing my senses if God does not
come to my aid." I said " without prejudice to his other works."
Will it be believed that in those crowded hours the indefatigable worker
found time each evening to instruct soldiers in writing and arithmetic ?

He came up to the competitive examination on the date appointed,
after three days journey almost without sleep, emaciated and feverish,
full of courage, but without hope of success. Seven competitors
presented themselves, who were already well known as Professors
in the Colleges in Paris, where they had been for years within easy
reach of original documents.

The long series of tests opened. The written compositions consisted
of one thesis in Latin and one in French, each occupying eight hours.
The thesis in Latin treated of " The causes which arrested the develop
ment of the Tragedy in Roman Literature." The thesis in French on
the following day dealt with The historical value of Bossuet's Oraisons
funebres. Ozanam knew how they should be treated ; but not having
had sufficient time, and being accustomed to polish his drafts at his
leisure, he was only able to rough out two drafts, and even these he
had to drop at the last moment. He would have withdrawn from the
contest in despair, if his friend Ampere had not passed a note to him
on his blotting pad to the effect that all was not lost. The contrary,
indeed, was the fact. Three days examination on Latin, Greek, and
French texts followed, of three hours each. Those days were in his
favour. Another full day was devoted to the German, English,
Italian, and Spanish Literatures. Ozanam was the only candidate
who presented this optional part of the programme. Schiller, Klop-
stock, Shakespeare, Dante, Calderon, helped in different degrees,
but all helped.

There remained for each of the competitors two theses to present,
on subjects which were drawn by lot, one a day, the other an hour in
advance. Through ill-luck a seemingly impossible subject fell to
Ozanam's lot, " The History of the Latin and Greek Scholiasts." The

172 FREDERICK OZANAM

public laughed and Ozanam gave himself up for lost. A drier or more
unattractive piece of philological treatment could not be imagined.
One of his rivals, M. Emile Egger, with a fine sense of chivalry and
generosity, lent him excellent books dealing with the subject. Ozanam,
nevertheless, after a night's thought and a day's torture, arrived, more
dead than alive, at the hour fixed for the resumption of the examina
tion.

He placed all his confidence in God, and he never acquitted himself
better. He discussed the scholiasts. He spoke of their services :
' The scholiasts, whom ignorant commentators represent as so many
worms gnawing at the manuscripts of the past, are on the contrary,
exactly those who have kept intact the purity of texts, have thrown
light on dark passages and preserved traditional usage. It is to them
that we are indebted for being now able to read the works of those
great men, who were their masters as well as ours." He gave a dis
sertation on this subject which lasted for two hours ; he spoke with
a mastery, a certainty, and an ease that astonished himself. He
delivered it all with a charming style of elocution, which gained him
the sympathy of the examiners, the admiration of the audience, and
even the good-will of the Parisian professors. These latter had been
hitherto unfriendly to the provincial intruder, who had come to
challenge and even to wrest from the College the palm of victory,
which it regarded as its own by right.

Ozanam was awarded First place as a result of the examination,
without having to call on the marks awarded to Foreign Literature,
his optional subject. Those who came next were Messieurs Egger
and Berger — two names dear to Literature. The examining board
included M. le Clerc, who presided, M. Alexander, examiner in Greek
Language and Literature, M. Patin in Latin Language and Literature,
M. Fauriel in the four foreign languages, and M. Ampere, Professor
of French Literature in the College of France. He, next to Ozanam,
rejoiced most in the triumph.

The report of the presiding examiner to the Minister for Education,
dated 3rd October, 1840, concluded as follows : " M. Ozanam, by his
extensive knowledge of classical literature, by his grasp of an author
and treatment of a thesis, by the clarity of his commentary and the
breadth of his general plan, by the boldness of his views, by his language
breathing originality, logic and imagination, seemed to be eminently
suited for a public Professorship. The competition, which has been

HIS CHRISTIAN VIEWS 173

inaugurated by you, and which opens a new era for the Faculties>
will not be surpassed in brilliancy for many years."

The freedom with which Ozanam had professed Christian views had
been the subject of much comment during the examination. When
considering Montesquieu and I' Esprit des lois he had quoted St. Thomas
Aquinas' definition of a Law ; in his literary critique of the age of
Louis XIV, he launched forth against the Jansenist school and its
fatal influence on French poetry. He showed himself particularly
imbued with religious admiration for St. Francis de Sales : and that
without being the least concerned what such and such a one of his
examiners, who might not be familiar with La Vie devote, would think.

He explained how he felt to his brother, who furnishes the des
cription : ' Fully satisfied that my preparation was incomplete, and
that there could not be any question of my success, as M. Cousin had
said to me, I presented myself for the Competition with the feelings
of one who has nothing to lose and nobody to conciliate. I could
then be myself, free to utter my true sentiments. I was thus able to
speak more boldly and to express my Christian views in a more
challenging fashion. For a moment I was startled at my daring. I
thought I had gone too far. Fortunately the effect was credited to
the warmth of my convictions. Persuaded to the very end that
there was not any question of fighting for victory, as M. Cousin had
already advised me, I was all the freer to fight for honour ; and first
of all for the honour of God. All else was added thereunto."

The result of the competition was only just announced when one
of the examiners, M. Fauriel, Professor of Foreign Literature in the
Sorbonne, requested that Ozanam should supply for him from the
opening of the course. The request was granted. Ozanam belonged
henceforward to Literature, to Paris, and more than ever to God.

He wrote to Lallier : " My friend, if all that is not a dream, it can
only be explained in one way. God granted me the grace to bring
to that test a faith which makes thought animated and virile, maintains
harmony in ideas, and breathes heat and life into speech. Thus I can
say In hoc vici. Such a thought, while it makes me humble, is never
theless reassuring."

It is, then, God who was thanked, and in Holy Communion. A
short letter written at once to Lallier, on the 3rd October, concluded
as follows : " Those events surpassed all my hopes. I am praying
God now that He will enlighten me. Join me in prayer ; rest assured

174 FREDERICK OZANAM

that I, on my part, in receiving Holy Communion to-morrow morning,
will not forget your tender anxieties, any more than I shall forget
our friends, our common hopes, and our duty to summon up our
courage for the severe trials which the present position of Church
and State imposes on the lowliest of their children."

That duty, which was now imposed on him more than ever, and
for the adequate discharge of which he begged his friend's prayers, in
order that his courage should be equal to the present situation of
Church and State, lay henceforth for him in higher instruction.
Such an ideal appeared to him indeed sublime, and he wrote as
follows : " To instruct man in truth is no ordinary undertaking. The
boldest minds attempted it with hesitation. Descartes, trembling
in his solitude before the conception which was to change the course
of Philosophy, went on a pilgrimage to Notre-Dame-de-Liesse in order
to obtain the grace not to mislead the human race."

175

CHAPTER XIV.
HIS MARRIAGE.

BELGIUM AND THE BANKS OF THE RHINE. — CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE. — LYONS
OR PARIS. — THE WEDDING. — HONEYMOON. — SICILY AND ROME.

1841.

Ozanam's intention was to return to Lyons immediately after the
examination, to rejoice with his relatives and friends over the result.
He desired more particularly to place his laurels at the feet of one,
who had become a very dear friend and even a sweet hope. But he
was obliged on the other hand to deliver in the place of M. Fauriel
a course of lectures on German Literature in the Middle Ages, com
mencing with the Niebelungen Lied and the Heldenbuch.

It was the subject which had been recommended by M. Ampere, and
accepted by M. Fauriel. But in order to treat poetically and identify
geographically, that epic from beyond the Rhine, should he not at least
have first glanced at the scene of the drama ?

" It was," as he said, " a case of literary conscience." Was it not
rather a little piece of literary snobbishness +o be able to say to his
audience ; Gentlemen, I have been there ? " Exactly as when a child,
I used to wet the tips of my fingers in order to be able to say without
fibbing to my mother, I did wash myself." He set out, regretting
very much that he could not return directly to Lyons at a moment
when " the need for an unbosoming of the heart was great."

" I made the great effort which duty demanded, and flung myself
into a train at Paris for Brussels. Then nature asserted itself. For
more than a long day I went from one fit of depression into another,
at the thought of the keen enjoyment which I had given up."

On the sixth day of his trip Ozanam availed himself of a stop at
Mainz, during the long October evenings, to commence an account

176 FREDERICK OZANAM

of his impressions for Lallier. They were those of a pilgrim, rather
than of a tourist or litterateur.

I note first his views on Belgium : " This new-born Kingdom, this
nation in miniature, this empire of Lilliput," at which he first smiles;
at the activity, at the institutions and at the prosperity of which he
is then amazed, and about which he concludes: "Situated between
France, Germany and England, Catholic Belgium is an institution
and an example ; it is, in that way truly European and a moral power.'*

I note particularly his views on Louvain : " The Sorbonne of the
Low Countries," the first beginning of which, it will be remembered, the
young student in Paris had welcomed and defended, " Restored to its
former glory by the Belgian Bishops, endowed with forty Chairs,
a Library of 130,000 volumes, and three colleges, the Louvain
University has shown how the Church, when she is her own mistress,
can enlist patriotism in the service of faith. Nowhere have I seen
Orthodoxy, Liberty, and Science held in such honour and in such
respect."

Ozanam spent some hours at Aix-la-Chapelle, but was detained
longer at Cologne. Having first paid tribute to its ancient distinction,
he next pays homage to its present honour in the heroic person of His
Grace Archbishop Droste de Wischering, still imprisoned by Prussia.
" I saw the archiepiscopal throne empty, but the church crowded.
The widowed church with its Gothic arches, radiant amid its ruins,
seemed to me a type of Andromache of old smiling through her tears."

Speaking of the wonderful legend of the eleven thousand virgins
at St. Ursula, he says simply : " Who would have the courage to count
them ? I note the historical fact of the virgin martyr. I kneel at
her tomb. As for the number of her companions, I am only sure of
this, that she has more in Heaven than she had on earth."

This enthusiastic visit to pious monuments lifted him up with
admiration. He was pleased to recall the fact that such marvels
of Art stand to the credit of the Germans of the eighth to the eleventh
centuries "whom two hundred and fifty years of Christianity had
initiated into the most refined and the most sublime mysteries of true
beauty."

It can easily be surmised how interested the professor of the morrow
was at the scene of the German and Prankish epics. He saw Xanten,
the country of Siegfried, Worms, where Chriemhild grew up under
the protection of her brothers. The Niebelungen Lied, the Carolingian

BEYOND THE RHINE 177

Epic, and the cycle of the Holy Grail are side by side there. Still more
ancient myths have peopled the the hill of Lurdes and the caves of
Kedrick with Elves and Dwarfs. In this wise the scene of barbarian
tradition, which he was to unfold afterwards from the professorial
chair, became fixed in his mind.

The pilgrim is afterwards pleased to come down to the Middle Ages
which were peopled with Saints, having their mottoes inscribed on
the ruins of towns and monasteries : " Throughout the whole of its
course the river flows under a Catholic firmament. The patron
saints of navigators, St. Peter, St. Nicholas, the Blessed Virgin, have
their statues on its banks ; the Crucifix tops the highest crests of the
neighbouring mountains .... Our rapid passage leaves us scarce
time to salute these apparitions of the past ; and yet I have promised
that they shall not be left out. There is not a foot of the way from
Brussels to here to which my feelings were not attached, not a farewell
uttered which did not cause a pang." It was only a passing glance
it is true, but one which would serve him in good stead on his return.
He compares himself playfully to the young Caligula, who pressed
on to the Rhine, gathered some pebbles on its banks, and then returned
to receive the honours of a triumph in Rome which decreed him the
title Germanicus for that feat !

" I shall return via Strasburg to Lyons," he said at the end of his
long letter to Lallier : " after five weeks business and work, I shall
return to Paris to settle down there and to become your neighbour."
The principal matter of business which he was about to settle in Lyons
was specifically the choice of life, which had been long delayed. The
will of God had declared itself by interior and exterior signs which must
now be noticed.

Living entirely the intellectual life, and sustained by the grace of a
full spiritual life, Ozanam had refused to think of marriage. In 1835
the twenty-two year old student does nothing but laugh at one of his
comrades " who is inclined to light the candles at the altar of hymen
with hundred thousand franc notes ! .... To fortify myself against
such a fate, and to inoculate myself against such contagion, to steep
myself in the love of solitude and liberty, I have just concluded a
pilgrimage with my brother to the monks of the Grand Chartreuse !"

" Ozanam 's pure soul," writes M. Caro, " cherished all his life a
chivalrous and tender sentiment of purity towards women. He had an
especial horror of loose conversation and writing, which break down the

178 FREDERICK OZANAM

barriers of sex distinction and debase love. He received with difficulty
any historical truth which witnessed the weakness of an illustrious
woman. I recall frequently his shyness and embarassment at the discreet
allusions of Bossuet in his funeral oration on the Duchess of Orleans.
His chaste imagination did not dare to advance further than the
thought of the priest."

Nevertheless the announcement of the intended marriage of a friend
was not without its effect in bringing him face to face with the prospect
of entering into those holy bonds.

It is with such sentiments that he regards marriage in the following
letter instinct with religion : " Although my age is the age of passions,
I have scarcely felt their most distant tremors. My heart has, so far,
known only the sentiments of comradeship and friendship. Yet I seem
to begin to experience symptoms of another order of affection, and I
begin to be afraid. I feel a void growing within me, which neither
friendship nor intellectual work fills. I do not know what will fill it.
Will it be the Creator ? Will it be a creature ? If the latter, I am
praying that she may come when I shall have made myself worthy
of her. I am praying that she may be sufficiently good-looking not
to cause any after regrets. I am praying especially that she may
bring great virtue in a great soul, that she may be much more worthy
than I, that she may elevate me, that she may be as brave as I am
often fearful, as ardent as I am lukewarm in the things of God,
sympathetic, so that I shall not have to blush before her for my un-
worthiness. Such are my wishes and my hopes, but as I have already
said, there is nothing of which I am more ignorant than of my own
future."

It is a just conception of the ideal of marriage at once calm, lofty and
humble. Two years later the ideal of a religious life had taken shape
and had driven out for a while that of marriage. He wrote modestly,
on the 5th October, 1837, as follows : " It is not that I have to distrust
the inclinations of my heart, but I feel that there is such a thing as a
male virginity, which is not without honour and charm." The
marriage bonds made him fear. The permanency of the link to any
human creature, no matter how perfect she might be, seemed to him
an abdication. When present at a marriage he could not forbear
shedding tears. Nothing less than the thought of the Blessed Virgin
and the Blessed Mother sufficed to make him pardon the daughters of
Eve for their confiscation of our liberty in capturing our hearts.

IDEAL OF MARRIAGE 179

" Not indeed," he explains to his friend, Lallier, who was engaged,
" that I claim to preach permanent celibacy. But that she, whom
God destines for me, should come only when I have had time to make
myself worthy of her " ; adding, " I wish that the moment of conjugal-*'
union should be deferred until the mind has attained its full develop
ment, the character its moulded form, and that some sort of right to
family joys has been acquired by work and solitude."

That work, what was it ? He replied with outspoken frankness
to the friend deprived of mother and home : " Are not God and the
pursuit of knowledge, charity and intellectual work, enough to conquer
your grief and to occupy your youth ? Is society so happy, religion
so honoured, Christian youth so numerous and so active, that you
have the right to withdraw so soon the talent and the grace with which
God has endowed you, like unto the wearied labourer who bore the
heat and the burden of the day ? Do you despair of the regeneration -/v
of our country, of the resurrection of ideals ? Or, indeed, do you
despair of yourself, of God Who has created, purchased and sanctified
you ?"

Lallier married towards the close of 1838. The austere Ozanam was
not too severe with him. His New Year's wishes for the household
were, " You gave me an invitation at Christmas which I did not fail
to accept. I pray the God of all mercy, who visited me in the ruin
of my family, to visit also the home where yours is growing, to be in
your company as He was with Joseph and Mary, and to bless the
first hopes of your union."

When that first hope was realised, Ozanam saluted the baby in its
cradle in the following lines : " Happy is the first-born of an early
marriage ! Happy is the father to whom is given the great consola
tion of seeing his youth regenerated in the person of a son I" He
hailed " the little angel whose presence sanctifies the home, makes
virtue more loveable and life less serious."

But better was to follow. The day arrived, and that very soon, when
the roles were reversed and it was Ozanam who formally sought the
benefit of Lallier's experience in the great question of marriage :
" Christmas, 1839 : My perplexity is great. I am spoken to on all
sides about marriage. I don't understand the question sufficiently
well to be able to make up my mind. Advise me. You know the
responsibilities and the consolations of that state. You know also
the character and the history of the client. Give him, I beg of you

i8o FREDERICK OZANAM

your opinion with that same frankness which he exercised towards
you."

If "he was spoken to on all sides about marriage " it was because
everybody sympathised with his isolation, which, indeed, showed itself
plaintively in all his correspondence. He was obviously lonely and
bored by the side of his own hearth. There the tender orphan found
on his return from his professorial lectures only the humble and dull
society of the old Guigui, who was always recalling the dead, without
being in anyway able to fill their places. Ozanam wrote : " I am
beginning to experience that complaint, which you knew only too well,
ennui. Intercede with the Saviour of souls on my behalf that He may
save me from the dangers of loneliness, that He may enlighten my mind
to know His designs for me, and grant me the strength to accomplish
them. His will be done on earth as it is in Heaven, that is to say
with faith and with love."

But was not married life incompatible with a life of good works ?
That strange objection, which he had urged but a short time before
to Lallier, had disappeared from his mind at the sight of the young
homes in the City of Lyons, whose heads had continued to be the solid
supports of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul. He wrote to Pesson-
neaux as follows : " Generous souls even though in the married state,
none the less continue to collaborate in that noble work. Thus we
behold with joy Arthaud, Chaurand and many others persevering in
their former chosen work. They have been lost neither to the poor,
nor to the great work of the regeneration of France.

To induce Lallier to postpone his marriage, he had also urged the duty
of deserving, by a studious and lonely youth, the happiness of a union,
to which a good claim, if not an absolute title, should be established.
Now Ozanam himself was 26 years of age. He was a Doctor in twa
Faculties, a brilliant graduate of the Faculty in Paris, occupying the
chair of the Law of Commerce in Lyons, about to deputise on the
morrow for the chair of Literature in the Sorbonne. In addition to
all that he was a man of good works, enjoying the friendship of the
highest in the land, bearing a name still superior to all those distinc
tions. She, who was destined for him by God, could be presented to
him by the Divine hand itself.

Ozanam made no progress. We read in his correspondence of
April, 1840, that it was in vain that his friends and acquaintances
invited him to their family reunions — " the only reunions suitable

HIS FUTURE WIFE 181

for him " — in order to draw him out of his lonely state. " He longs
to see the season of feasts closed, and replaced by the rigorous practices
of Lent." He does not, however, decline to take part in the marriage
celebrations of his friends. He offered his felicitations in beautiful
terms to Le Taillandier and Dufieux on the occasion of their marriages.
He brought to Chaurand's marriage feast his presence, his graceful
bearing, even pretty little poems, " the last verses of his expiring
poetic muse, in which he experiences something of the feebleness
which characterises the paternity of old men." In every reunion or
gathering he holds himself studiously aloof from " those young Misses"
as he describes them en masse, thus discouraging the secret but trans
parent designs of their mothers. He hastens again to declare on the
2 ist June, 1840 : " I am free, with the most complete freedom, but
with a freedom which is sometimes inconvenient, in that it exposes
me to matrimonial schemes characterised by the most compromising
advances."

Providence, however, who loves pure and upright hearts, and who
guides their destinies with His own hand, led Ozanam, all unwittingly
to his.

The Abbe Noirot had never wavered in his view, that Ozanam was
not made for the life of a religious. But forbearing to probe into the
inmost recesses of that independent and free character, he awaited
an enquiry from him. His reply was invariably : " Get married, my
dear young man, get married." He had indeed in his mind the name
of a young girl of good family, who seemed to him most worthy to
become the spouse of his dearest disciple. As for an interview,
Frederick would not have been a party to it. The Abbe endeavoured
to arrange an apparently chance meeting. Providence did the rest.

Ozanam was in regular touch with the Rector of the Academy in
Lyons, M. Soulacroix, his immediate chief. One day, accompanied
by the Abbe Noirot, he visited his chief, and the Abbe, entering the
drawing-room introduced to Madame Soulacroix, as if by chance, M.
Frederic Ozanam, a young professor of Law, with whom she exchanged
a few conventional phrases. In the same room, sitting at a window,
a young girl nursed tenderly a young man suffering and crippled, who,
one felt, was her brother. She sustained, cheered, and comforted
him ; she was, indeed, so taken up with him that she failed to notice
the presence o* the strange visitor. But he had noticed her. From the
next room he still regarded through the open door the figure of the

i82 FREDERICK OZANAM

young girl leaning gracefully over her dear invalid : " Loving sister
and happy brother ! How she loves him !" His eyes never left her.
It was the charming image of charity that had just appeared to him.
The young girl whom the Abbe Noirot had just indicated was not
altogether unknown to him. He knew — it was well known in Lyons —
that M. Soulacroix had himself watched over her education, and had
beautified her mind with all the aesthetic taste of which he was an
acknowledged master. Her mother, a woman of outstanding merit, of
kind disposition and simple distinction, had trained her in those
household duties and graceful accomplishments, which make homes
dignified and manners charming. The child possessed, it was said,
uncommon musical ability, with which she gave great pleasure. Above
all, she was passing rich in those treasures of devotion and delicacy,
which piety implants in the hearts of Christian women, for the happi
ness of husbands and the salvation of children.

The fugitive vision, which had made Ozanam desirous of being loved
by such a sweet sister, was followed up by a series of more frequent
visits to his principal for business reasons. Did the story of Dante
and Beatrice occur to him ? But Ozanam could not possibly have
thought that such a poetic reverie should ever become a dominating
reality of his existence.

Another thought of it for him. The Abbe Noirot, who lived on terms
of great personal intimacy with M. Soulacroix, had sounded him on
the matter. He did not find the father at all repugnant to the sugges
tion of a union between his beloved daughter and the young professor
whom he held in affectionate regard.

That regard and friendship had shown itself in several administrative
provisions for the advancement of the young Doctor, the pride and the
hope of the Lyons Academy, whose salary he had just raised from
3,000 to 4,000 francs. That was only the beginning.

The question of succession to Quinet's chair of foreign literature
arose about the same time, through the same agency, and with the same
intention. " It is nevertheless true," the Abbe Ozanam informs us,
" that when the Abbe Noirot communicated to my brother the assent
of his principal to the consideration of marriage, Frederick could not
believe it, so far below that choice did he regard himself, so stunned
was he by his good fortune."

It was during those days that Ozanam was suddenly called upon
by M. Cousin to take part in the professorial concursus. He devoted

ENGAGEMENT 183

all his time to the immediate preparation for a test, the consequences
of which were naturally not unconnected with the issue of the new,
but less pressing, undertaking. It was decided that the engagement
should be postponed until the result of the concursus should be
announced. The marriage was to be the prize.

Indeed, one month after the brilliant young doctor had returned
from the banks of the Rhine to Lyons, a letter to Lallier, dated 6th
December, informed him of his arrangements, and of his joy : " My
dear friend, the awful question of vocation, which had been unsettled
for so long, has been suddenly solved. At the same moment that
Providence called me to the steep moral incline of the metropolis, an
angel guardian was given me to console my loneliness. I am leaving
for six months, and my engagement will be completed on my return."

His elder brother introduced Frederick officially to his people-in-
law and describes in detail the event : " We were about to withdraw
after a mutual exchange of congratulations, when M. Soulacroix took
the hands of the engaged couple and with overflowing heart, held them
in his own, as if to knit those bonds which the Church was to consecrate
later." M. Soulacroix was a thorough-going and outspoken Christian,
who did not fear in troublous times and in a difficult post, to throw the
mantle of his protection over Catholic schools.

For one moment the question of the place of the future home arose.
Would it be in Lyons or in Paris ? The decision was magnanimous
and stands to the honour of the fiancee.

The new Minister of Education, M. Villemain, who succeeded Cousin,
was a close friend of the Principal in Lyons. Knowing of the proposed
marriage of Ozanam and the daughter of Soulacroix, and desirous
of fulfilling his predecessor's promise, he felt he was falling in with both
views in offering him the chair of Foreign Literature, which had just
then become vacant by the promotion of Quinet to the College of
France. It meant, with the chair of the Law of Commerce, an income
of about 15,000 francs. It meant a permanency. Above all, it meant
Lyons, the families of the young couple, friends, the advantage of a
well-known name, security to the end of his career. Paris could only
offer a temporary acting position, a moderate income, a precarious
livelihood, straitened means, probably hardship. But on the other
hand, Paris was the centre of Catholic action, the battle-field of the
defence of religion, with Catholic Truth to advance, Catholic Charity
to foster, the storm centre of the battle for the restoration of God in

184 FREDERICK OZANAM

philosophy, history and literature ; it meant the society which was
bound up with eight years of his young life, and to which God and his
friends were calling him .... Ozanam prayed fervently at that time.
" Heavy sacrifices have to be made, cruel partings to be endured,
business and family complications to be solved, all that is more than
enough to terrify one of ordinary energy. It is fortunate that the
appreciation of my weakness makes me lift my eyes to Him who
strengthens. Up to the present I asked for light to know His will ;
I ask now for the courage to do it."

He had naturally to consult his future father-in-law, who was of
course on the side of Lyons. To abandon Lyons for Paris was to
surrender the substance for the shadow, the certain for the uncertain,
happiness and peace for trouble and danger. What father of a family
could possibly support such an adventure ?

Ozanam pleaded for Paris with arguments which fathers-in-law
best understand, more rapid advancement, close touch with influential
people. M. Ampere was a guarantee of the latter. In addition, he
urged the advantage of unique libraries of reference, a young and
impressionable audience not to be had elsewhere, a future in which,
with God's help, hard work could win for him independence and honour.
M. Soulacroix was very much touched by the appeal. The worthy
father understood that heroism has also its rights in this world. More
over, his confidence in the talent and industry of the young Doctor was
boundless. But would the father play the part of sending the daughter
to be sacrificed ?

Ozanam appealed to the young lady herself. That was a moment
of pathos. He placed every consideration before her. They could
indeed remain in Lyons in the bosom of their families and enjoy
happiness and tranquility. They were called to it, it was wisdom, so
it was said, it was their right. But for him it meant the abandonment
of what he regarded as a most compelling duty, of the raison d'&tre
of his activities and of his existence. It meant the surrendering of
the noble mission which he had dreamed of accomplishing with her,
sustained by her, living a life given up to self-sacrifice, but shared with
her. Was it too much to ask ? Had she sufficient confidence in herself
and in him to commence in a small way, to suffer a little, to bide their
time patiently with the grace of God ?

The fiancee replied to that question by placing her hands in
Frederick's, saying : " I have full confidence in you !"

SEPARATION 185

The description of that scene is clearly from the dictation of Madame
Ozanam herself.

The holidays were brought to a close brightened by visits, enter
tainments and a series of musical " at homes," given by Madame
Soulacroix to the elite of society, over which her daughter presided
as a queen. Ozanam was transported with delight.

But December had come. The opening of the course of lectures
at the Sorbonne called the young Acting-Professor to Paris. No time
was left for the preparation or celebration of the marriage. It was
postponed to the end of the academic year, seven or eight months
later.

The time of separation arrived. Paris became for the lover a place
of exile. That is what he calls it in the following letter, dated the 6th
December, to Lallier, whom he calls " his best friend in this world " :
" After six weeks' holidays crowded with big events, I must return to
Paris to embark on the perilous voyage at the Sorbonne. I appeal
to your prayers. May God guard, during my six months' exile, her
whom He Himself seems to have chosen for me. Her smile is the
first ray of happiness which has shone on my life since my poor father's
death. You will conclude that I am deeply in love ! I do not hide
it from myself, even though I am forced sometimes to laugh at it, I,
who thought I was hardened !"

Lyons saw Ozanam for one fortnight at Easter. It was the
sweet prelude to the happiness which was to be his in the summer
vacation. From December, however, an uninterrupted correspondence
had linked together those whom time and space still kept apart. This
private correspondence has remained so far privileged and reserved.
Its value is unequal. Yet if, from the thirty odd letters of which it
is composed, we were privileged to quote a few lines, we should choose
those in which Ozanam thanks his fiancee for having supported him
with her intercession and her merit, on the two days each week that
he faced the audience as a Professor. Or again those in which he
besought her to join him in spirit in his work of charity, as the best
asset of the store that was to be theirs in common. Or, above all,
those wherein he made it a matter of conscience to show himself to her
such as he really was, with more defects than virtues, for she must
be united to him only with full knowledge.

" My dear, illusions about me are not possible any longer. You
see me, you know me, and such as I am you want me. You do not

i86 FREDERICK OZANAM

give up hope of my becoming better. You believe in me because of
the high character of my friends, because of the reputation left by my
parents, because of the inheritance of faith and morals which they
bequeathed to me, and which, thank Providence, I have preserved.
Your faith will indeed sustain mine. I may commence to think
that I am some good, seeing that I have become dear to another.
When doubts assail me, when difficulties trouble my conscience, when
fears for the future terrify me, I shall grow calm in thinking of you. I
shall say that if God should see fit to abandon me to darkness and ruin,
He could not, as a loving Father, permit that a young girl full of
purity and innocence, of rectitude and tenderness, should be deceived
in her trust, should wander from the straight path, and fall into my
hands."

It was on the 23rd day of June, 1841, that M. Antoine Frederic
Ozanam, 28 years of age, married Madamoiselle Marie-Josephine-
Am elie Soulacroix in her 2ist year.

A full description is given a week later in a letter to Lallier, dated
from the Castle of Vernay, 28th June, 1841 : " Last Wednesday, at
8 o'clock in the morning, in the Church of St. Nizier, your friend was
kneeling before the altar, on which his elder brother was celebrating
Holy Mass, and at the foot of which his young brother gave the
liturgical responses. At his side you would have seen a white-veiled
young girl, pious as an angel, and now, I have leave to say, as tender
and affectionate as a loving friend. She was happier than I in this,
that her parents were present. Yet all the family relations that
Heaven had spared me were there too ; and my former comrades,
my brothers of St. Vincent de Paul, filled the choir and peopled the
nave. I did not indeed know where I was. I could scarce restrain
sweet tears from falling, and I felt the divine blessing descend on me
as the consecrated words were spoken."

He wrote as follows to Lallier and to Pessonneaux to whom he
wished to introduce his charming wife : " She is delighting every
one I am happy. I do not count days or hours. Time does

not exist for me. What matters the future ? Happiness in the present
is eternity. I understand what heaven means. Help me to be good
and grateful."

A similar letter was sent some days later to M. Ampere : " I am
aflame with interior happiness. I thought of you amidst the
friends at the foot of the altar. . . Your name recurs frequently,

THE HONEYMOON 187

as well as that of your revered father, in my conversations

with my new relations But indeed I feel that my obligations

to you are almost discharged by praise from the beloved lips of her,
whose one little word makes me tremble."

After that event we must note a season of one month, which the
wedded couple spent at d'Allevard Springs for the treatment of
laryngitis, of which the professor was almost altogether cured. But
the real honeymoon was spent in Naples and Sicily, finished off and
crowned by a ten days stay in Rome. "It was from first to last a
dream of enchantment," according to Ozanam's correspondence.

The requirements of the honeymoon had to be simple from first to
last, if they were not to make serious inroads on the savings which had
been put by for the home in Paris : " What present could he offer to
his young wife more delightful or more lasting than the memory of the
shores of the two Sicily s, seen through the eyes of an artist, and ex
plained to her by the loving lips of a historian, a Christian and a poet ?"

The description which he gave in his letters to his two brothers,
to his people-in-law, and to Lallier, is altogether beautiful. In
that correspondence the two antiquities, pagan and Christian, appear
side by side amid incomparable landscapes, forming the background
for family scenes, in which the young wife always plays the leading
part.

The pilgrimage was closed in Rome. Ozanam saluted St. Peter's
dome on the 5th November in the following terms : " The cupola of
St. Peter's is the diadem of the Papacy hanging between heaven and
earth. The colossal dome is easily visible from the seas washing the
shores of Italy. From the neighbouring hills the sun was to be
seen setting behind it. An admirable type of the institution which
stands immutable, — the while we are passing on the seas of time, —
and on which the setting rays of the last sun of this world will rest."

Pope Gregory XVI. received them in paternal fashion and placed
them by his side : "Be seated ; you are my children, let us leave
formalities aside and have a chat." Dante was the subject of much
discussion.

" We shall never forget the solemn moment when the Sovereign
Pontiff, after having chatted familiarly with Amelie and me, stretched
forth his venerable hands and blessed us and our families."

Ozanam found old friends in Rome, the Abbe Gerbet who had come
to study Christian Rome, Cazales, who had come to be ordained. He

i88 FREDERICK OZANAM

made learned acquaintances, ecclesiastical and lay. He mentions
the patriarchal welcome which he received from Cardinal Pacca. He
discussed Orientalism with Cardinal Mezzofanti " whom the ancients
would have made a god, and whom God will certainly make a saint."

He concludes as follows : "It is not for nothing that one kneels
at the tombs of the Apostles, that one prays before the simple flag
stone covering the remains of St. Peter. It is not in vain that, going
down into the catacombs, one plunges into the very entrails of
Christian Rome. I feel a new movement in my mind, I feel my
thoughts, which had been wearied by a precocious development, re-
invigorated, expanded and refreshed."

After a short stay in Florence, the travellers reached Marseilles on
the 28th November. They spent a day in Nimes, where M. Curnier
entertained them with a fete which he himself has described. The
poet Reboul recited his poems at it. Lyons kept them only for the
period necessary to make preparations for final departure and farewells.
They were in Paris in December.

CHAPTER XV.
THE SORBONNE.— ANCIENT GERMANY.

FIRST LECTURES. — TEUTONISM AND CHRISTIANITY. — THE HOLY ROMAN
EMPIRE. — THE HISTORIAN.

1842.

Back to Paris as a Professor, after six years continuous absence,
Ozanam was able to affirm in his letters that the Catholic party, as it
called itself, had continued to gain ground steadily. His first step
was to pay a visit to Lallier, who was then entering on his duties as a
magistrate in the jurisdiction of Sens. Ozanam had written to him
from Lyons : " I am keeping my first free moment to convey to you
my thanks. Better or kinder things could be not said to me. I asked
God for the faith and courage of which you hold the secret. Our
friends here, Chaurand, Arthaud and others, join in kind regards. A
young generation of angels is growing up around them. Those are
small Catholic families who are increasing, and who will preserve the
tradition of faith and virtue."

That was at the beginning of the six months period between the
betrothal and the marriage. The lonely man took rooms with the
Baillys for the first year of his Sorbonne lectures. They received him
as a son. He mentions the names of some of his former friends,
Cazales, Saint-Cheron, Montalembert, who welcomed him as a source
of strength. " All this band is armed and ready for the fight," he
writes. " A many-sided movement is developing which is shaping
the destiny of this generation. The same movement has brought us
the Correspondant, the Revue Europeenne, L' Avenir, The Catholic
University, the Annals of Christian Philosophy, V Univers, the Confer
ences in Notre Dame, the Benedictines of Solesmes, the Abbe
Lacordaire, down to the little Society of St. Vincent de Paul. But
who can say how far the efforts of the simple and the humble have

FREDERICK OZANAM

contributed to clear the way for great movements and great
men ? "

Proceeding, he mentions in the Press " new writers such as
Veuillot, taken from the enemy and recruited to the cause." Has not
Buloz been heard inviting for his Revue des Deux-Mondes writers
whom he calls "men of honour?" In the pulpit he names Pere
Bautain, Pere de Ravignan, Pere Coeur, the Abbe Marcellin, the Cure
Desgenettes, with all his converts from Notre Dame des Victoires. In
the opposite camp, he states, since the triumvirate, Cousin, Guizot,
Villemain, abandoned the " platform of the Sorbonne," not a voice
had been heard on that side, not a volume of any kind had appeared,
which was daring enough to formulate a doctrine of its own. As for
heterodox literature, it has been reduced to the level of barren criticism
or indecent licentiousness. " Things being as they are," concludes
the young professor, " the field of battle is ours, if we have a sufficient
number of men, and of united men, to carry the position."

Ozanam admired the progress of Catholic propaganda in England
and America, the religious stand made by O'Connell in Ireland, and by
the Rhine provinces on the question of mixed marriages. In the
Press he notes with favour the Catholic of Madrid, the Dublin Review,
the Journal of Religious Knowledge in Rome, the Catholic Miscellany
of Charleston, the Courier of Franconia. " They all hold out a helping
hand to us."

Last, and best of all, he refers to the Ada of the Holy See : the
allocutions of the Pope directed against the governments of Russia
and Prussia, which were persecuting the Church : the Bulls in favour
of the suppression of the slave trade, the encouragement given to new
congregational foundations, to reform in religious Art, the recent
appointment of independent Bishops, such as Monsignor Affre, Mon-
signor Gousset, Monsignor de Bonald, etc. " All," he concludes,
" is co-operating in a forward movement, the extent of which it is
impossible to foresee, but the existence of which it is equally im
possible to ignore." Ozanam came to Paris to be one of the co-
operators.

The Society of St. Vincent de Paul and its President, M. Bailly,
called him unanimously to a seat in the Council-General. There he
found Leon Cornudet, Receiver-General of Petitions in the Council
of State, and a young man of 21 years, Adolphe Baudon. Since
Lallier had gone to Sens, Louis de Baudicour had taken his place as

AN ENTRANCE TO THE SORBONNE.

OPENING LECTURE IN THE SORBONNE 191

Secretary-General. In 1840 the line of demarcation between the
Particular Council, at the head of the Conferences in Paris, and the
Council-General, looking after the common interests of the Society,
had been clearly drawn. At this time, 1842-3, eighty-two Conferences,
in forty-eight cities and thirty-eight different dioceses, were in a
nourishing condition, enjoying the patronage of their Bishops. "It is
astonishing," wrote Ozanam at that time to his brother, " to see works
of charity enlist such devotion in French society, which has been so
distracted for more than half a century by many doctrines, so shaken
by scandals at home, so scorned abroad. In this very same Paris,
amid the discrediting of many ideals, there is one and one alone which
maintains dignity, respect, and genuine popularity, and that is
Religion."

The Sorbonne also awaited the young master. His course of lectures
was to treat of two different foreign literatures, the one Italian, specialis
ing in the Pur gator io of Dante — that was almost a legacy of M. Fauriel,
who had written a life of that poet — the other Teutonic, dealing with
the dawn of literature in Germany : both co-ordinating in the pro
fessor's general sketch of the early growth of Christian civilisation
among European nations. He intended to throw into relief the
divine origin of Catholicity, by showing the grandeur of its influence
for civilisation on the barbarians. That was to be the founda
tion of the vast super-structure which, built-up of many different
sections, co-ordinated into a harmonious whole, was to advance a
stage each year.

Ozanam opened his course of lectures on the first Saturday in
January, 1841. On that day the Faculty of Literature of the Sorbonne
witnessed a young professor enter and take his place in the Chair of
Fauriel. He was pale from the effects of burning the midnight oil ;
paler when he cast his eyes over the lecture-hall and saw it
crowded with an audience waiting for him to begin. Happily, he was
able to recognise in that audience a goodly number of familiar faces,
friends rather than critics.

He began slowly and nervously : "It could not be otherwise
than with feelings of gratitude, mingled with nervousness, that I
come before you for the first time to a Chair of the ancient
University of the Sorbonne, with all its olden glories continued in its
modern triumphs .... But even in my nervousness I find cause for
hope. My age makes me fear, but on the other hand it brings me

IQ2 FREDERICK OZANAM

into touch and sympathy with the majority of my audience. A feeling of
joy, too, will be pardoned on taking this Chair, when I remember the many
acts of friendship which I have already experienced in this same hall."

The friends replied with applause, which raised his spirits for a
short while. But the first half-hour of his lecture was, nevertheless,
laboured and spiritless. The feeling of the critical nature of this
first effort, which might decide his whole future, paralysed his faculties.
He describes himself in his correspondence as dragging along slowly
and entangled in his notes. He was unaccustomed to that armour.
Applause was useless, it could not rouse him. He himself was vexed
to feel that his toneless and halting speech did not express his thoughts.
It was not Ozanam. But a point was reached in the lecture when the
orator escaped from the thorny maze of erudition, and found him
self face to face with the tremendous fact of the Crusades which fixed,
in his opinion, the starting point of German civilisation. He put
forward that thought with beautiful imagery : " There is a moment
in the solemn ceremonies of Holy Week in Jerusalem, when the Grecian
Bishop, entering the Tomb of Christ, enkindles a blessed flame. There
upon the pilgrims rush forward to light their tapers from it, and carry
them to their homes. So the torch of Science and Art was enkindled
in the Crusades and was to illumine the whole of Europe."

Thenceforward, disentangling himself from his notes and making
up for his physical exhaustion by his indomitable courage, Ozanam
became master of his speech and of himself. Carried away by the
sympathy of his audience, he concluded his lecture with animation,
which was much applauded. " Overcome with fatigue, shaken in
nerves, almost hysterical, he met many friends, fellow-members of
the Society, and colleagues, who assured him that he had done ex
tremely well." Such is the story of the opening lecture.

Ozanam attributed that success solely to the support of friends,
of whom he wrote : " You would not believe all that their kindness
has done for me." Several Professors and graduates of the Sorbonne
also had encouraged him kindly with their presence. Curiosity had
drawn a large number of the students of the Ecole Normale. " There
is not anything to sound a fanfare about," he wrote, and he placed a
mute on the press. He wrote to M. Soulacroix : " There is not any
false modesty in the statement that I narrowly escaped breaking
down. I was disgusted with the crude and shapeless propositions
which I heard myself putting forward. It required all the good- will

SUCCESS OF THE LECTURES 193

of a very well-disposed audience to pull me through Only

towards the end was I able to put a little life into it. The sympathy
of the audience supported my efforts, and the lecture closed fairly
well. It was friendship that scored that success for me."

But such an audience is not easily found a second time, and Ozanam
could not shake off his fears, until the experience of the first term
would have reassured him. The audience remained loyal and " the
lecture-hall continued crowded even during those lean days of the
Carnival, when students usually betake themselves elsewhere. M.
Le Clerc, M. Mignet, M. Cousin, heaped kindness on the young master.
The Minister of Education congratulated him : " But you know how
lavish M. Villemain is of his compliments !" A delegation from the
Ecole Normale was officially appointed to attend his lectures. The
Nouveau Correspondant requested that his lectures should be reported
and circulated. The Univers spoke of his triumphs in a way that
embarrassed him. The Journal des Debats referred to him " in terms of
such exaggerated praise as tended to make him ridiculous. ' ' The Gazette
of Augsburg reproduced his lectures on Germany. He himself
was desirous that much of this unexpected honour should be
attributed to the merit of certain prayers, which were being offered
for him in Lyons during that time : " Your pious intercession with God
is driving out the demon of fear, which, like the demon mentioned in
the Gospel, is dumb." The public insisted on crowding to his lectures :
" The lecture-hall is packed with an audience determined to be in
terested in the maze of German history, in which I myself am lost."

A young Christian professor had, at twenty seven years of age,
begun as a master and as a master had been listened to — a new
experience in the Sorbonne. Catholics applauded, sceptics listened,
attracted by a new eloquence. "Athens was listening," writes
Pere Lacordaire, "as it would have listened to Gregory or Basil if,
instead of returning to the remoteness of their own land, they had
unfolded at the foot of the Areopagus, where St. Paul preached, those
treasures of Science and Art which made their names illustrious."
After the interruption caused by his marriage and honeymoon, Ozanam
resumed his course of lectures for the second year under equally favour
able auspices. The young Professor returned to Paris in time to take
his place officially at the funeral of that Jouffroy, against whose error
the student of 1831, just ten years previously, had protested. Truly
a remarkable date ! Jouffroy died, having seen the falseness of his

194 FREDERICK OZANAM

philosophy and having been reconciled in heart to Christianity, which
received at the end his tardy homage.

Ozanam wrote to his father- in-law, on the 27th January, 1842 : " I
have resumed my course of lectures, and although the present treat
ment of the subject matter, which I outlined last year, is less general,
more specialised, and less attractive, the attendance is maintained.
It is always large and sympathetic."

The specialised course of German Literature during the academic
year 1842-3 comprised, after the Niebelungen Lied, the lyrical poetry
of the Minnesinger. Ozanam, in his admiration for the Niebelungen
Lied, called that epic the Iliad of the Germanic nations. Comparing it
with the tales of the ages of chivalry, he finds in it the rehabilitation
of woman, and the first traces of the Christian ideal.

He writes as follows in his Melanges : " The principal role in the
Niebelungen Lied is filled by a woman, Chriemhild. She is the first
to enter on the stage, never leaves it — at least she is always present
to the mind — and when she ceases to appear, the action closes. She
is a truly heroic figure ; her development occupies the story, growing
with a terrifying reality, from the innocence of tender years to the
catastrophe of a bloody agony. There is the modesty of the virgin,
the tenderness of the spouse, the bitter anguish of the widow, but
always the motive is love. If she, as tender as Andromache and as
faithful as Penelope, effaces the types of the ancient epics ; if she
affrights the terrible personages, the Achilles and the Ulysses of the
German epic ; if the weaker sex is chosen in which to realise the heroic
type, is not that something altogether new, is not that peculiar to a
chivalrous age ? The daughter of Eve, raised from her long obscurity,
was rehabilitated in Law and glorified in Art. The same culture
united under different skies the Minnesinger and our Troubadours.
The pictures of two women, Chriemhild and Beatrice, crown the two
greatest poems of barbarian and Christian times."

The professor intended to close that course with dramatic and
didactic poetry. He would afterwards deal with the prose writers,
chroniclers, romance writers and philosophers of that period. Indeed
it was a history of Literature which was to be treated in his lectures.
M. Soulacroix had already expressed his desire to Ozanam that those
lectures should be worked up into a volume at once scholarly and
popular, which would do credit to its author, and win academic
honours, and probably future preferment for him

GERMANY AND CHRISTIANITY 195

It was with quite other views that Ozanam had taken up the
sacred duty of educating and writing. The interest of religion was
the first in importance. That scene of German antiquity was the
battle ground on which the spirit of Catholicity and the spirit of false - V
Philosophy would wage a war of ideals.

A retrograde school of thought opposed Catholicity at that time in
Germany. It maintained that the peculiar genius and ethnological
character of its people were due to pagan and barbarian Germany
alone. It charged Christianity with having turned the nation from
the natural path of development, and placed a dam in the course
of its mighty progress. According to it all was pure, gigantic, heroic,
superhuman in that dim age, when the proud nation, virgin like its
forests, had not yet come into contact with the vices of a Latin
civilisation, nor been emasculated by a new regime and a new faith.
That was indeed a travesty of history and the error had to be refuted.
The brutal reality of that barbarism, the corruption of its morals,
the harshness of its laws, the ferocity of its wars, the cruelty and
infamy of its religion and its gods, had to be exposed. On the other
hand Christianity, the liberator, was to receive its due in compen
sation for the ingratitude and calumny of that rude German spirit ;
Christianity which had brought forth light out of darkness and order
out of chaos, for future ages of triumphant civilisation.

" The dominating interest of the subject for me," Ozanam wrote
from Oullins, on the I7th August, 1842, " consists in the fact that
Germany is indebted for her genius and her entire civilisation to
Christian ideals ; that her greatness was exactly in proportion to the
degree in which she had assimilated those ideals ; that for her, as for
us, there would not be, there will not be, any ofher true destiny than
that to be found through contact with Rome, which is at once the
depository of all temporal human tradition, and of the eternal designs
of Providence."

" All that seems very simple, very natural, and altogether a matter
of course on this side of the Rhine. But beyond its banks national
pride plumes itself on an aboriginal civilisation, which Christianity
destroyed, on a Literature which, but for its contact with Latin letters,
would have developed with an unexampled splendour, of a future
which could even yet be magnificent, if a degenarate race would restore
the Teutonic ideal unadulterated. The Germanic type is not Charle
magne but Arminius."

196 FREDERICK OZANAM

Ozanam knew well that he had opposed to him every German
school of history, literature, and philosophy, from Hegel to Goethe and
from Goethe to Strauss. He was engaged hand to hand with the
Orientalist Lassen, and the historian Gervinus, who were quite irre
concilable to Christian practices, which were spoiling their great
barbarians. Barbarians they would still be, as Ozanam shows, if
they had not entered, through the portals of the Christian faith, into
possession of the religious, scientific, and political heritage of modern
nations. He adds that, by repudiating it, they can only succeed in
falling back into their original barbarism.

Literary history thus visualised was indeed true drama, the action
turning upon the alternative of life or death for society. Such in
struction was, however, only an affair of outposts. Ozanam was
reserving all his big artillery for the work which was to reproduce
his lectures at a later date, re-enforced, developed, and armed at all
points, viz., Les Germains avant le Christianisme. He outlines the
scheme of the work to Lallier, adding : " But, my dear friend, a book
is no small matter when time presses, particularly for one like me who
writes very slowly and with difficulty. I have no hesitation in re
commending the work which I am commencing to your kind and
fraternal prayers."

The first volume was to have its sequel in a second, demonstrating
the civilising influence of the Gospel on the first German tribe that
came under its sway, Le Christianisme chez les Francs. A complete
demonstration of the progress of society through Christian civilisation,
and through it alone, stands out by contrast from those two sketches.
But the Franks of that day are the French of ours. It is then for
us, their heirs, and for our patriotism, to repudiate the outrageous
claims of a barbarism, which is as ungrateful as it is arrogant : "If
it is the favourite theory of the Teutonic school to deny Germany's
obligations to Latin civilisation, and to refuse to credit our ancestors
with that education, it is for us French, the elders of the family, to re
establish that claim."

The Professor and the publicist would not stop there. Those two
preliminary sketches of the history of German literature in the Middle
Ages, Les Germains avant le Christianisme and Le Christianisme chez
les Francs, which Ozanam entitled his Germanic, one pagan and one
Christian, are to be followed by a third. He made up his mind that
he would trace and reproduce throughout the Middle Ages Charle-

THE HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE 197

magne's grandiose conception and political institution. The scope
of the work would cover six centuries of Christianity and it would be
entitled Le Saint-Empire wmain (The Holy Roman Empire).

Ozanam wrote as follows, on the 27th January, 1842, to M.
Soulacroix : " I have consulted M. Mignet and M. Ampere about my
studies and lectures on the literature of the Middle Ages — which
permeates every side of life — and they have advised me to confine my
lectures to one particular subject, even to one episode, which I should
treat in detail. Even though it be narrower in scope, it would still
be of general interest. I believe I have found that subject in a
synthetic delineation of the Holy Roman Empire. Some of my last
year's lectures, perhaps indeed some of the best which I have given,
would come in well there. That Empire would appear the universal
monarchy of Christian ages, the ideal conceived by the genius of
Charlemagne and but imperfectly realised by his successors, developed
by public law, living in the philosophy and in the literature of the
twelfth, thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. It would be seen later
struggling with the Papacy, beaten in that fight, subsequently re
duced to the proportions of a German Empire, and finally in our own
days to that of an Austrian Empire."

" Such a work has not yet been produced. It would not be a detailed
history of events, but rather a philosophical history of Charlemagne's
institution, which would throw much light on contemporary life in
Mediaeval Europe. The cause of Italy's failure and France's triumph
would be found in it. The most celebrated personages of the age
would appear in its scenes, such as Gregory VII., Innocent III.,
Frederick Barbarossa, Rudolph of Hapsburg. Doctors, jurists, poets
would bear witness in its pages. All my studies would be co
ordinated, perfected, and completed."

Would such a work, written in honour of the Papacy and of the
Church, be calculated to win the sympathy of historians and
politicians ? That would have been indeed to misconceive the public
spirit of the day. The same letter went on to say : " One would say
that there has been for some months a recrudescence of ill-will towards
conservative principles, the decline of which the government seem to
deplore. A professor has just been sent to preach Saint-Simonism
in the College of France ; an Italian refugee will replace M. Bautain
in Strasbourg ; the Cross of the Legion of Honour has been conferred
on the author of a work which is both anti-French and anti-Catholic.

I98 FREDERICK OZANAM

Public lectures have been authorised for workmen, delivered by men
who are notoriously hostile to Christian ideals and who are busying
themselves in infusing new life into dying prejudices and dead hatred."
Faced with that opposition, the indomitable Christian in Ozanam
would not allow him to dissimulate his tenets, nor to sacrifice one jot
of his high ideal of the duty of a historian. He wrote, and his father-
in-law well knew with what truth : "All that makes me anxious, my
dear father, but pray do not discourage me. I feel that the driving
force in our convictions is greater than the malice of our adversaries.
I should not gain by dissimulating my belief, and I should not retain
the confidence of my chiefs who know what I am ; I should rather lose
the trust of the young men who like me. The maintenance of some
dignity and some independence in these days is not without value.
I have spoken of my work and it has been warmly approved. I shall
- now perfect the plan, and then proceed to carry it out. After Easter
the necessary material will be ready."

Why were not strength and life vouchsafed to accomplish that
work ? Who else was as well qualified or endowed to complete it ?
Can one realise what a philosophical history of the Holy Roman
Empire, a signed proof work of that master hand, would have meant
for religion and literature ?

But whatever he wrote or taught, the Catholic historian insisted
on his rights and recognised his duties. The first is to speak according
to his own religious convictions. "Those who do not hold with
expressions of faith in a scientific treatise, will find perhaps that I have,
in mine, assigned too great a role to Christianity. But I cannot
conceive any true man putting his hand to the hard business of writing
without a dominating conviction. I do not certainly aspire to that
sorry independence of mind, the peculiar characteristic of which is
that one believes nothing and favours nothing. It is not meet, doubt
less, to be constantly professing one's faith ; but who, on the other hand,
would dare to handle the dim periods of history, to delve into the origin
of nations, to review their religions, without coming to some con
clusion on the eternal questions which are being agitated ? Who can
come to any such conclusion in an age of doubt and controversy, and
preserve his thought uninspired and his speech unmoved ?"

Ozanam gave clear expression to the sense of freedom which exists
in a believer, side by side with respect for, and confidence in, the
triumph of faith. " Two things only may be demanded from an author.

DUTIES OF AN AUTHOR 199

Firstly, that his belief shall be independent and intelligent, and Christ
ianity requires no less. Secondly, that the desire to justify a con
clusion, shall not induce him to distort facts, in order to produce the
desired proof. But nothing of the kind worries Christian writers.
Having no doubts on the supreme question of God, the soul, and eternity,
which disturb so many others, they are able to enter the domain of
science with liberty and respect. They know that it is not permissible
to deny any truth, however trifling, however profane, however em
barrassing. They make it a point of conscience not to hide any stain
which dims the lustre of any glory. If their research succeeds in justify
ing revealed dogma, they state the fact, and rejoice for very love of
truth. If it be not given to them to remove obstacles, and to lead
science to the point of union with faith, they know that others will
press on. They are patient, for they know that, though the way is
long, God is at the end."

The work on the origin of civilisation in Europe, begun with his
Germanie, was followed without interruption by similar studies on
what Ozanam called Italic aux temps barbares. That was the subject
matter of his course of lectures during 1843, and became later the
Introduction to his book, La Civilisation chretiennc au V* sieclc, to
which we shall again refer. It suffices to mention here, since it is
what principally concerns us in this volume, the impression which
those studies made on the mind of the professor. Let us hear how
he speaks of them to his young brother, in a letter dated 2$rd June,
1843 :—

" My dear Charles, I am just finishing the first year of the literary
history of Italy, from the Christian era to the time of Charlemagne.
That work has been for me, as well as for my audience, a moving study
of the Papacy, through the medium of which the difficult transition
from ancient to modern times has been made possible. Well, my dear
Charles, I have had the advantage of seeing Christianity at close
quarters. I find its benefits, of which I knew something already,
greater than I had ever imagined. I appreciate more than ever how
one ought to love the Church, which has done so much to preserve,
to prepare, to make accessible, the knowledge, information, liberty,
and civilisation which have come down to us."

While awaiting his great work, Ozanam gave extracts to the Cor-
rcspondant, in the form of summaries, which were laborious to him,
who must have correctness in matter and perfection in form. It is £

200 FREDERICK OZANAM

propos of one of these articles that he wrote on the gth March, 1843 :
" I have just finished the most laborious six weeks in my life, during
which I denied myself every relaxation and curtailed even my night's
rest. You know with what difficulty I write. It becomes more
necessary than ever for me not to let my pen rust, for it is becoming
like an old sword, which cannot be drawn from the scabbard." But
he was rewarded for his labour by the unspeakable joy, of which he
writes as follows : "One must experience also the pleasure of effort
which has triumphed, the infinite joy of having discovered truth or
of having reproduced beauty, that detached happiness, that trembling
of the spirit as light approaches, giving it a presentiment of the
divinity."

Nor did Ozanam fail to call the Spirit of Light to his aid, whether
in the lecture-hall or in his study. With him it was alternately pre
paration and consecration. His closest friends relate : " The day and
night preceding his lecture were devoted to selecting and classifying
his not^s. After that he took a bird's-eye view of his subject in order
to seize and to bring into relief the master-idea. It was late at night
when an anxious voice could tear him away from his deep and solitary
meditation. At daybreak he resumed the chain of thought which
had been scarcely interrupted. When the moment for departure
arrived, he left as if for the accomplishment of a sacred mission."
His friends report, that they had never known him go to lectures
without first imploring the assistance of the Holy Spirit, in order that
he might not utter any word calculated to harm truth."

He is then described as crossing the Luxembourg gardens with rapid
steps and bowed head, occasionally glancing at papers, but never
failing to observe and return the sympathetic greetings which he
received. Having reached the Sorbonne, he appeared in the professor
ial chair, pale, unstrung, casting unseeing eyes over the audience,
whose gaze he seemed to fear to meet.

I shall not reproduce here the portrait of the orator drawn by
Lacordaire, who had known himself the difficulties and the triumphs
of public oratory. M. Ampere says more simply : " Those who have
not heard Professor Ozanam, do not know the personality of his genius.
First, laborious preparation, dogged research, and a vast accumula
tion of knowledge ; then, brilliant delivery in beautiful: language which
carried the audience with it ; such was the course of lectures. He
prepared his lectures like a Benedictine, and delivered them like an

FATIGUE 201

orator : a double task in which a highly-strung constitution was used
up and ultimately consumed/*

Therein lay the danger. M. Soulacroix, his father-in-law, noted
with alarm the excessive fatigue, which his system of lecturing and
study induced. His Principal, M. Victor Le Clerc, expressed his
opinion : " Take care, Monsieur Ozanam, moderate the ardour which
is carrying you away. Continue to be an orator, but with restraint.
That impassioned speech, that over-mastering enthusiasm, causes
your friends uneasiness. Think of the future. We do not wish that
any of that future, which is your due, should be sacrificed. We desire
that, for your sake and for our own."

But the fatigue of the lecture did not cease with its close. Further
cause awaited him at the door of the hall which, though it arose from
love, did not diminish his exhaustion. Those same men young, whom
he had held hanging on his word, joined him on leaving the hall and
accompanied him as a body-guard of intimate friends. Those were
indeed his disciples, who sought to break through the ranks and hold
personal and intimate speech with him, that speech which is never
forgotten. They conducted him in this fashion to his rooms across
the avenues of the Luxembourg gardens, in the hope of a private and
friendly chat, which prolonged a lecture of already one hour and a
half's duration.

There were others, and they formed the greater number, who re
turned meditating silently on what they had heard. It was truth
that they had listened to, it dispelled doubt, and to it they surrendered.
Ozanam found the following note at the lodge of his apartment at the
Sorbonne : " Sir, I am leaving your lecture. It is impossible not to
believe what is so convincingly expressed K it can give you some
satisfaction, may I even say, happiness, learn then that before listen
ing to you I did not believe. What many sermons have failed to do
you have done in one lecture, you have made me a Christian. Accept,
sir, the expression of my joy and gratitude."

The greatest joy was for the master, as his brother, to whom he com
municated the note immediately, was able to show.

The tone of conviction which imposed belief, impressed even the
most sceptical and irreverent. Sarcey wrote: "He has the sacred
fire. There is such an air of interior conviction in this man, that
without the appearance of doing so, he convinces and moves you.
He has a tender and dreamy imagination, and uses charming expressions

202 FREDERICK OZANAM

of a poetical and melancholy turn. To listen to him brings tears to
one's eyes." Sarcey compares and contrasts him to M. Jules Simon,
" who is an orator to his finger-tips, but in whom one feels somehow
the lack of conviction, without which one is only a good actor."
Ozanam's interior conviction was Faith.

A course of Catholicism through history, professed officially and
warmly welcomed, from a lay State professorial chair, was something
new in the Sorbonne. Undoubtedly the recent trio, M. Guizot, M.
Cousin and M. Villemain, had shed lustre on the higher studies of
Literature. But, if part of that lustre was attributable to the eloquence
of those masters, was not its greatest part to be attributed to the
political passions of the hour, which those masters had sedulously
flattered and enkindled ? The young Catholic professor advanced,
on the other hand, to the defence of austere doctrines, to wage war
against popular prejudices, to fight for a victory which should be due
to truth alone. He had for his equipment a strength of conviction,
which was only equalled by his tender devotion to his young men,
his disciples, whom he schools at the same time in truth and charity.
It is from this point of view that we shall consider the good master.

203

CHAPTER XVI.
MASTER AND DISCIPLES.

STANISLAUS COLLEGE. — OZANAM AS A PROFESSOR AND AS AN EXAMINER. —
PARISIAN CONFERENCES. — RELIGIOUS POLEMICS.

1841-1843.

Monsieur and Madame Frederick Ozanam, now domiciled in Paris,
had first taken a simple flat in the street Grenelle-St.-Germain. When
it was rendered uninhabitable by the heat, M. Bailly's kindness
found them a better flat with a garden in Fleurus street, near the
Luxembourg. Its windows looked out on the broad and pleasing
prospect of the Luxembourg avenues. Ozanam called it a palace.
The house had been built originally for Murat, afterwards King of
Naples. It had subsequently been used as a dwelling by Prince Cler-
mont-Tonnere, after which it came into the possession of M. Bailly.
He was very glad to be able to let one of the flats on the upper stories
to the young couple. It was thither we saw the Sorbonne students,
in an affectionate throng, accompanying Ozanam after one of his
lectures.

They were not his only students. In addition to his University
courses, he had undertaken three classes in Literature each week,
for the senior students of Stanislaus College. The college director
in 1841 arranged the matter on terms, which were honourable to the
Professor and which would also be a welcome addition to his scanty
income. The director was Abbe Gratry, thirty-five years of age.
It would be indeed difficult to imagine two more harmonious or more
sympathetic characters than these two philosophers and authors.

Ozanam 's first words to his rhetoricians had been those of mutual
respect and confidence : " I shall not resort to corporal punishment.
I intend to treat you as men if I find you are men. If it be otherwise,
if you be unruly boys, I shall not lose my time and my trouble with

204 FREDERICK OZANAM

you." They took him at his word and their regard and attachment
corresponded. There went forth men from that class.

Ozanam's course in Stanislaus College was memorable. One of
his sometime students, and certainly one of the most illustrious, M.
Caro, afterwards Professor of Philosophy in the Sorbonne, and a
member of the French Academy, will introduce us to his class :

" I remember, as if it was only yesterday, the first day that we came
into the class-room. The first impression was one of curiosity, and
I must say, of rather a jeering kind. Ozanam was neither handsome,
elegant, nor graceful. His appearance was common-place, his manner
awkward and embarrassed. Extreme short-sightedness and a tangled
mass of hair, completed a rather strange ensemble. A spirit of malice
in the class was however rapidly replaced by a feeling of sympathy.
It was impossible to remain long insensible to an expression of kindli
ness coming direct from the heart through a face which, if somewhat
heavy, was yet not without distinction. Then, a smile of beautiful
refinement, and at moments, a flashing intelligence transformed the
face, as if it had been suddenly illumined by a ray of light from the
soul. He unbent willingly with a gaiety, with a laugh so boyish and
so natural, a wit so charming and so well turned, that it was a delight
to find him in one of those happy moments when he let himself go.
We tempted him on ; he refrained, taking refuge in the severity of
duty and the seriousness of instruction. He unbent occasionally.
Then you should hear him ! What youth in that spirit so mature in
knowledge ! What refinement and frankness ! Refinement and
frankness : that constituted the charm of a nature which had preserved
simplicity of heart with the most complete refinement of mind."

He was capable of deep emotion even to tenderness. A pupil of
his recalls the fact that he never referred without tears to Bossuet's
charming eulogium of the Duchess of Orleans : " She was gentle to
wards death !" Was it perhaps a presentiment of what was to be
his own ?"

Ozanam's class benefited by those gifts. " Without being in
any way pedantic, he interested everyone in his studies, winning us
by reason or by imagination. He had a way of asking questions
that created an impression that one had discovered what had been
shown. Those pleasant and dramatic turns gave a lively interest
to his lectures, and set up an amount of discussion about him, which
became, with direction, a fruitful source of activity. The most barren

AT STANISLAUS COLLEGE 205

and unimpressionable intellects were susceptible to his influence.
Even the dullest students, the Boetians of the College, thought they
understood without understanding, which was for them a step forward.
He raised the young men in that way to his own level, praising the
efforts of even the dull, provided only that they had the courage to
persevere. Ozanam loved good- will."

The instance of a young student is mentioned, who notwithstanding
great industry, had remained at the bottom of the class. When Ozanam
took charge of the class, he took him aside and was at great pains to
make him understand. Surprised at being able to follow, moved and
won by such condescension, the young boy placed in the letter-box
the following touching epistle : " I promise you most faithfully that
I shall show my gratitude by achieving the impossible." He carried
off a first prize in the general competitions at the close of the year.
He became subsequently a member of the Institute !

During his year and a half's Professorship in Stanislaus College
Ozanam had never to correct a student. They venerated and loved
him. On one occasion the beloved master came to give his lecture,
suffering from a heavy cold, with his face swollen and his head
bandaged. The wag of the class had the bad taste to ridicule him. He
paid for his bad taste on the moment. His class mates hurled him out
the door even before the Professor had time to notice the incident.

Up to then the College had done badly in the general competitions ;
at the close of that year the class of Rhetoric received several firsts.
A large number of Ozanam's students requested, at the same time, the
favour of doing a second year's Rhetoric under him.

No professor had ever gained that degree of rapt attention which
shows itself by complete silence. It was expressed in an address to
him on a feast day as follows : "As we sit at your feet each day,
charmed and delighted with your erudite lectures, we fear to break
the thread of your eloquent speech. Let us, if for once only, break
out into applause."

Caro writes again : "As years went on, Ozanam's former school
pupils, now University students, were his friends. I never knew a
master so beloved. Young men were inevitably attracted to him,
and the sympathy was mutual and loyal. Once they had come to
know him, they never left him."

In addition to Caro, who has spoken for all, we should also hear
M. Heinrich, who was later the Ozanam of the Lyons Faculty, M.

206 FREDERICK OZANAM

Nourrisson, the Christian Philosopher of Stanislaus College, of the
Institute and of the College of France, for whom Ozanam was to the
end a model and a source of consolation.

There was quite a distinct type of student of the early courses, in
Ernest Renan, who speaks of him in his youthful essays : " I never
left his lectures without feeling stronger, more determined to do big
things, more courageous, and keener for the conquest of the future."
He wrote to his dear mother in Brittany : " M. Ozanam's course of
lectures is the defence and justification of all that is worthy of respect."
Later, the same man exclaimed : "Ozanam, how we love him ! What
a beautiful spirit !"

Another of his students, Prevost Paradol, from the £cole Normale
had passed his licentiate in Arts before Ozanam, had then become a
sceptic, but had come under the charm of this splendid believer.
He deplored his death. When he wished, in his melancholy pages
on La Maladie et la Mort, to give an example of death transfigured by
the hope of immortality, it is Ozanam who furnished it. "One does
not need the refined and cultivated mind, nor the noble soul of Ozanam,
to die as he died lately in our midst. The simplest of his brothers
will imitate his example on that day, because they are constantly
imitating it. The practised sight of the Christian does not require
to be keen to contemplate the heavens from the place of death, for
they are wide open for him."

Another young graduate of the same time, the Abbe Goux from Tou
louse, a student of the Carmelite School in Paris, went to consult Ozanam
on the theses which he was preparing for his Doctorate. He was
received with evident pleasure. Neither dinner, which was ready
waiting, nor the frequent notification to that effect which was sent
into him, nor the good taste of the student, who stood up several times
to go, could defeat his insistent charity : " Please sit down : I shall
indeed be disappointed if you leave so soon." The theses submitted
to Ozanam were none other than Lerins au Fe siecle and De Divi
Thomae sermonibus. That candidate for the Doctor's Degree became
Bishop of Versailles, and was pleased to refer to that instance of kind
ness and courtesy in the following terms : " I shall never forget the
graciousness with which M. Ozanam received me. I have experienced
courtesy from many ; but with him it was pure Christian charity.
I was quite unknown to him, I would not again see him, yet he treated
me as a friend and a brother."

AS EXAMINER 207

Cardinal Lavigerie, who was also a student of the Carmelite School,
wrote to Ozanam's widow : " I am happy, Madam, to be the means of
conveying to you the blessing of Leo XIII and to discharge in a poor
way my debt of gratitude to the good and illustrious deceased. He
did not disdain to grant me guidance and patronage in those far off
days, when I faced the examination for the Doctor of Literature in
Paris. I little dreamt then that the honours, which I gained with
his help, were to be carried later into African deserts."

On every week day, except on the days of his lectures, Ozanam
devoted from eight to ten o'clock in the morning to his students.
They crowded into his study, as if it were a Cabinet Minister's ante
chamber. He received them graciously, discussed with them at
great length what concerned them, as if he had nothing else to think
about or to do. Although that tore him from the work of his pre
dilection, yet he showed neither impatience nor regret.

I cannot include in the number of Ozanam's students the candidates
for the Academic Degrees. He sat as one of the examiners several
times each year. It was in those examinations, more particularly
in the B.A. Degree, that his patience was sorely tried — " I am over
whelmed with examinations for the Degrees of B.A., M.A., and
Doctor. It is a tiresome business to spend long days listening to
answers to questions. But it is still more tiresome to interview candi
dates and their parents seeking advice and favours ; the sons whom
they bring with them to make familiar with my appearance ; and
those who come later to know the causes of failure and the best way to
make good ; not counting the parents who lose their temper, who
defend mistranslations vigorously, crying aloud against the injustice
and unreasonableness of examiners."

He has described himself several times in his correspondence "Sitting
at that blessed little green table, the Greek Professor on one side and
the Mathematical on the other, between Examiners who are bored
and candidates who are in difficulties, awaiting his turn to ask questions
on History, Literature, Geography, of all lands and of all times. And
what answers ! Listen : 'What Assembly preceded that of the States-
General of 1789 ?' The audience whisper : ' The notables.' The
candidate answers ' The notaries !' — The examiner proceeds " You
are better acquainted with the history of Louis XIV's age. What was
the name of the Minister of Finance who was notorious for his mis
fortunes ?' The audience whisper 'Fouquet.' The candidate answers

208 FREDERICK OZANAM

'Fould.' Another informs him that Montesquieu was a great Bishop!
Ozanam admits that the pen fell from his fingers.

Ozanam was severe as an examiner, particularly severe in the case
of those candidates in whom he was interested, still more so in the case
of ecclesiastics, on whom rested the obligation of settling a standard
of knowledge. On enquiry as to the cause of failure of a young eccles
iastical student, Ozanam pointed out in detail the mistakes in composi
tion which he had made, and added with severity : " Dear Rev. Father,
the habit which you wear requires, nay commands, us to be more
exacting. When one aspires to the honour of the priestly state, one
must not run the risk of compromising its dignity by such failure.
Noblesse oblige."

M. Maxime de Montrond relates, on the other hand, that he never,
at any examination at which he assisted, allowed any attack on the
Church or on religion to pass unchallenged : "On one occasion a young
free-thinking Italian, a candidate for the Licentiate, had hypnotised
the Board of Examiners with his charming eloquence. Ozanam 's
turn for examination arrived : "Sir," he said in an incisive voice,
" I admire your ability but not your knowledge. You have not done
justice to the Fathers of the Church in accusing them of having arrested
the course of civilisation. You are not right in that ; you would have
done better on the contrary in asserting that they quickened its march."
There was general assent to that statement.

Ozanam met many of his old friends again in the Catholic Study
Circle. Private meetings, called Conferences, were being organised,
in which various subjects were handled by religious and scientific
writers. They were listened to there better than elsewhere, with the
calm and the dignity befitting intellectual matters. Ozanam accepted
the invitation to preside over the Conference of Literature. Had he
not been already trained for that by the Conference of History and
Philosophy which he himself had, with M. Bailly's aid, organised
twenty years before in Paris ? We have not the address which the
President delivered to the young men. We know only this, that he
exhorted the students to engage in the work of their time, the work of
study. He said this : "We do not work now-a-days. Seven or eight
hours a day given to the pursuit of knowledge make our friends uneasy
about our miserable health. Let us however be clear, that we are not
to regard ourselves as dispensed by faith from research, fatigue, or late
hours. Labour, the punishment of the fall, is the law of regeneration. "

CATHOLIC CIRCLE AND RETREATS 209

Again in the Catholic Circle he spoke to the young literary elite
of Paris : " Take up in all seriousness, gentlemen, what our ancestors
modestly termed the business of literature. Explore diligently the
field of knowledge. God is at the end of all knowledge, but He wishes
that we seek to find love, and He vouchsafes that we shall find Him
so as not to despair. The path of knowledge is long, my dear young
people, and we are only at the beginning. If it be not given to us to) * v
see the solution, we shall at least have pointed out the goal to others,] C_
who will reach it. They will have the joy of triumph, Providence^
will have the glory."

Besides the Catholic Study Circle there were other and higher meet
ings towards which Ozanam led the young men. Such were the Re
treats in preparation for the Easter Holy Communion, which Pere
de Ravignan had inaugurated in Holy Week 1842, at Notre Dame.
He writes to his younger brother: "Since Monday, more than six
thousand men have been present each evening at the Retreat given
by Pere de Ravignan. It is not possible to hear anything more elvated
or more solid than his sermons, nor to find anything more splendid
than the congregations . . . To-day, a general Communion of men
closed the exercises. Our serried ranks filled the centre of the Church,
which is twice the length of the Church of St. John in Lyons. There
were present rich people and nobility covered with decorations ; by
their side poor people in working smocks, soldiers, students of the
ficole Normale and of the Polythecnic, and children ; especially students
in large numbers. The Holy Communion, given by two priests, lasted
one hour. Then a magnificent Te Deum filled the Church and we
parted in a state of deep emotion."

Even after the Te Deum all was not quite finished, as a rule, for
Ozanam. What his letter does not, but what his brother does tell
us, is that, on leaving Notre Dame and while still filled with the pre
sence of Jesus Christ, the pious communicant did not fail, before
returning home, to visit the homes of his poor families of the Con
ference. He thus returned to Our Lord, in the person of His suffering
poor, the v'sit which he had just received from Him in the Holy
Eucharist. During his whole life he was pleased to complete a solemn
morning in this solemn way. It was the perfecting of his religious
work.

The poor, charity, the Conference of St. Vincent de Paul, furnished
fresh meeting-ground for the Master and his disciples. He gave

210 FREDERICK OZANAM

a warm welcome to his young brother Charles, who had joined the
Conference in Lyons and who desired, at his instance, to come to the
Society in Paris : " The Society of St. Vincent de Paul, my dear brother,
has in store for you, those pious and fraternal sources of joy which I
have found so consoling and so numerous. I cannot help feeling
very happy and very proud at seeing you enter the Conference. It
constitutes a further bond between us. Let us thank Divine Pro
vidence for having made us both enter this young and growing family,
which is perchance destined for the regeneration of France. It is
training a band of Christian recruits for the liberal professions, for
Science, for Art, for the State. You should devote yourself with joy
to Associations placed under the patronage of such a saint, which have
received such incredible blessings from Providence."

On the 28th February, 1842, Ozanam, who had now been three
months in Paris, had the pleasure of being present at one of
the Quarterly General meetings of the Society.

There were present six hundred young men, as many as the hall
would hold, " assembled," as he expresses it, "to review what good
had been done and to consider what was yet to be done." The Honor
ary Secretary presented a Report of the Society. . . . Two thousand
Brothers in Paris and the provinces : one thousand five hundred
families helped in Paris : a Home, and a Patronage established for
apprentices. . . . Numberless instances of spiritual aid not so
obvious but more beneficent.

" But," adds Ozanam, " the Honorary Secretary did not sufficiently
emphasize the wonder of that community of faith and good works.
It set out to train a new generation for the future, which would be
fired by a determination to raise the moral tone of society in Science,
Art, Commerce, Administration, the University, the Magistracy, the
Bar ; and to become better itself in order to make others better."

Three months later, on the first Sunday in May, Ozanam received
Holy Communion in the Church of St. Vincent de Paul, rue de Sevres,
at the altar and before the shrine of that glorious apostle of charity.
He was accompanied by deputations from twenty-five Conferences
in Paris. In the Church were missionaries from distant lands, in the
gallery the double and triple folds of the white bonnets of the Sisters
of Charity.

In the evening Ozanam spoke, in the usual meeting-hall of the Society,
on the inundations of the Rhone. The Prefect of the Department

HIS WARNING 211

had come to an arrangement with the Archbishop, by which the Society
would become the medium for the distribution of funds-in-aid in the
Vaise area — the area most devastated by the floods. The Lyons'
Conferences had, in seven months, distributed up to six hundred
thousand francs to the ruined families.

The Patriarch of Antioch, chairman of the meeting, an old man
with white beard, raising his hands to Heaven cried out : " This then
is calumniated France, this, her calumniated youth !" When he had
blessed the meeting and it had disbanded, groups of friends remained
here and there in the hall exchanging words of encouragement*

Ozanam's encouraging words were coupled with grave advice.
After referring to the Report of the progress of the Society, he laid
his finger on the danger: "One thing alone, Brothers, can stay our
progress and undo our work, and that is the falling-away from the
spirit of our early days. The pharisaical spirit, which would sound
the triumph before us : a selfish regard for ourselves and for our work,
which would underrate the virtue and merit of everything outside
our own little circle : a piling on of needs and of good works which
would weary and drive out our Brothers : a verbose philantrophy
preferring words to deeds : or else, an officialdom, waich would hamper
our forward march and tie up our machinery with red-tape : all that will
hinder us. Above all, we shall be destroyed if we ever forget the
humility and simplicity which reigned over our first meetings, which
made us love obscurity without reasoning why, and which probably
won for us the favour of such happy increase. For God is pleased
to bless the tiny and the inconspicuous, the mighty tree in the little
seed, man in his cradle, societies in the simplicity and humility of
their foundation."

On the Sth December, 1843, the Feast of the Immaculate Conception,
Ozanam, in a Report presented to the Quarterly General Meeting,
raised the young Society from its humble position, pointing it out,
as it were, borne in the arms of Mother Church, and cradled on her

*The new Conferences in Paris since 1S35 were in order of date of foundation :
St. Merry, St. Roch, St. Xicholas-des-Champs, St. Gennain-des-Pres, St. Francis
Xavier des Missions, St. Severin, St. Louis d'Autin, St. Medard, St. Nicholas
du Chardonnet, Xotre-Dame des Victoires, St. Marguerite, Notre-Dame de
1'Abbaye aux Bois, St. Jacques du Haut-Pas, St. Germain- I'Auxerrois, St,
Valerie, St. Gervais, St. Vincent de Paul, St. Thomas d'Acquin, St, Pierre
de Chaillot, St. Marie des Batignolles, St. Denis du Saint- Sacrement, St.
Eustache, les Ouinze-Vingts, St. Lambert de Vaugirard, St. Jean du College de
Stanislas 4th October, 1S41. V. Origines de la Soci£t£, p. 14 in 1S41.

212 FREDERICK OZANAM

knees since its earliest days. He speaks as follows of the episcopal
protection : — " We hailed it as a mark of Heaven's favour, as a precious
act of incorporation in the Church, above all as a safeguard against
ourselves. God, Who disdains not the weak, deigned to grant us this
favour in a degree which surpassed our hopes."

After His Grace the Archbishop of Paris, who presided frequently
at the Quarterly General Meetings, Ozanam named the Archbishops
of Avignon, Cambrai, Tours, the Bishops of Constances, Tulle, St.
Flour. He read letters from the Bishops of Besan9on Dijon, le Mans,
St. Claude, Aire, Rodez, Versailles, Bourges, Rennes, St. Brieuc, Autun,
Langres, Limoges. " Brothers, our Conferences in the provinces
have grown up at the portals of cathedrals, they exist in forty-five
dioceses with the approbation of the ecclesiastical authority, and
under the patronage of prelates who have freely opened to them their
chapels, their palaces and their purses." He mentions the Archbishop
of Lyons, the Cardinal of Arras, the Bishops of Amiens, Nimes, Metz,
Orleans. " The episcopacy of France holds the first place in the
history of Christian civilisation. All our great achievements have
been accomplished under their aegis ; the most insignificant can develop
under their protection." Ozanam follows the Society to Rome, to
the Vatican, and to our members kneeling at the feet of the Holy Father
praying for his blessing on the young family of St. Vincent de Paul.
He had been himself one of the first of such petitioners.
, In his funeral oration on Ozanam, Lacordaire spoke of " privileged
creatures, who came direct from the hand of God, when God joins
tenderness to genius in order to enkindle the world." It is tenderness
goodness, charity, indulgence, sweetness that he admires in Ozanam,
even in the fiercest of his combats " in which invincible under the
protection of the buckler of truth, he moderates the strength which
he feels in his sword, lest he should slay some fellow-being who might
yet be converted and live."

In the years following 1840 polemics were waged between political
and religious parties. It happened even with Catholics that expressions
were written and uttered which neither the justice of the cause nor
the excesses of the adversaries justified. The spirit of proportion
and justice in Ozanam was offended and frightened. Many thought
as he did. The friend of the young men thought it his duty to sound
a note of warning against violent methods which do not conduce to-
present truth in an inviting manner to unbelievers.

HIS ADDRESS 213

His chairmanship of the literary conference of the Catholic Circle;
on a solemn occasion, provided him with his opportunity. As chair
man, he had to deliver an address at a meeting graced by the presence
of Monsignor Affre, the new Archbishop. There were also present
a large number of people of position, who were in sympathy with the
Society and with the chairman. " Before accepting this honour/'
he says himself, " I had consulted his Grace on the subject matter
of my address. He insisted that I should deal with questions in which
he desired to make a public pronouncement."

The address was on The Literary Duties of Christians. He dealt
with orthodoxy in literature as its foundation, its inspiration and its
security. He reviewed the attack and defence of truth according to
the spirit, the teaching, and the examples of the Gospel, of the apostles,
and the apologists of faith. It should be regulated by the twin love
of truth and charity, of pity and peace. He quoted the lines of Pascal :
"God's design, which arranges all things with sweetness and gentleness,
is to implant religion in the mind through reason, and in the heart
through grace. Let us commence by pitying unbelievers, for they
are already unhappy enough. They must not be offended unless for
their benefit ; offence only does harm." Ozanam examines the case
of those who deny and those who doubt.

" We must not despair of those who deny. There is no question
of discrediting, only of convincing them. Let us beware of firing their
pride by insult, thereby driving them on to damn themselves, rather
than unsay themselves. Whatever be the foulness or brutality of
their attacks, let us give them an example of nobleness in polemics."

"As for those who doubt — and that is much the larger number — •
many of them feel the sorrow of not being able to believe. They are
entitled to compassion, even esteem. In the reconstruction of truth,
which is the honour of our age, in the restoration of spiritual doctrine,
several such have co-operated with us. We must not be ungrateful.,
We have traversed half the journey together. Let us remember that
it was not without their aid that we have advanced farther than they;
and let us stretch out a helping hand to them."

He closed his address by begging Catholics not to compromise the
recent triumphs and the hopes for the future by mistakes and quarrels :
" The movement for the return of souls to the true fold must be con
ducted with infinite care, if it is to run its full course. We are still
too far from the Promised Land to assume the airs .of conquerors and

214 FREDERICK OZANAM

masters. Let us hold on to our mountain-stocks for fear of false steps
and stumbles, let us regret neither the time nor the trouble. God's
chosen people were forty years on the way ; it is true that it was under
the leadership of the prophet, and that he did find his resting-place.
The Church of France has not finished traversing the desert, but she
too has her Moses, and we shall reach the Promised Land."

Pointed out and invited by the closing words, the Archbishop arose
to say a few simple plain words in his usual way ; " I have nothing
to add to what you have just heard with acclamation. I should fear
to detract from it, and shall confine myself to simply endorsing what
has been said with all my heart. The conclusions to be drawn from
the chairman's address, are summed up and confirmed exactly in the
following words of the Imitation of Christ : —

"A passionate man perverts even good into evil,
A good peaceable man turns all things to good."

It is in fact what has just been said. I am almost afraid to translate
the title of the chapter in which those lines occur Of a good peaceable
man. I wish each of you to be such a man."

It was indeed an address on peace, which was summed up in that
word of peace. It was therefore with great grief that Ozanam wrote
to M. Dufieux, in June 1843 : " I have just read in the Univers an article
published on Ascension Day entitled, On Moderation and Zeal, in which
I was described as a deserter from the Catholic struggle. That was
the reply of the paper to my address, which was not in any way dir
ected at it. Apologies have been offered to me . . ."

Ozanam 's letter concludes without recrimination, by expressing the
hope that " well-considered ideas and serious discussion will, please
God, prevail over ill-tempered exchanges, in which the wicked would
succeed better than we."

To his friends in Lyons, who were readers of the Univers, Ozanam
sent, for his justification, the text of his address with the speech of
the Archbishop, which he had had printed in the Bulletin of the Catholic
Circle. " I fear lest their friendship might be offended by the account
of my address : hence, I forward you the enclosed copies."

The letter closes with these lines, written in the presence of God :
" My dear friend, help me with your prayers. Obtain for me that
spirit of body and mind which all Christianity, kneeling in the solemn
ceremonies of Pentecost, asks from Heaven at the moment. I hope,
with the blessing of God and with your help, that I shall never fail

TRUTH 215

in the fraternal mandate from my friends, to defend the inseparable
interests of Religion and true Science."

Some months later, on the I3th October, Ozanam returned to Paris,
leaving his wife with her own people in Oullins, near Lyons. In a
letter he appealed to her to bear witness to his many and important
engagements. The loneliness caused by the absence of his wife
threw into relief the favours of God, the duties and the graces of his
We : " Well, my dearest, passing over in my mind the long series of
events in my life from the age of fourteen, when I first felt the call to
devote my life to the propagation of truth, I can state solemnly, that
all the experience of my later years confirms my belief in that vocation.
I know that truth has not need of me, but that it is I who have need
of it. The cause of Christian knowledge and of Truth has sunk its
roots deep into my heart. Since, therefore, it is threatened, since
Literature is the field of battle on which the quarrel will be decided,
since instruction will have a great part to play, since Paris is the one
city in France, and perhaps in the world, where intellectual campaigns
are decided, since Providence, through my family, through my friends,
through the irresistible inspiration which I then felt, has placed me
in the breach, I shall not desert it. Good, elsewhere impossible, can
be accomplished here. I shall make use of the favour of the public,
with which I am honoured, to further that end. I shall make it my
aim to ensure the life of that movement, by grouping and directing
young men in the way of good study. I shall write, so that the little
which I may be able to contribute to knowledge, may not be lost in
fugitive addresses."

" It is possible that I shall gain neither honours nor fortune. But
daily bread has not failed me so far, and as long as the hand of a dear
and pious friend is there to share it, it will suffice."

" But to accomplish that work industry, strength, and perseverence
are necessary. The first way to get them is to ask them from God. . .
I place, therefore, these and all other resolutions under the protection
of Him Who creates them in me. I shall lay them at the foot of His
altar. When you see me you will, I hope, find me fit to carry that
work to a successful issue."

2i6

CHAPTER XVII.

THE CHURCH AND THE UNIVERSITY.
LIBERTY OF TEACHING.—" The Correspondant"—* FULL PROFESSOR.—

DISTURBANCE OF STUDENTS IN THE SORBONNE. — M. LENORMANl'S
LECTURES.

1844-1845.

The year 1843 and succeeding years recall the demands of French
Catholics for freedom of teaching, as opposed to University monopoly.
We have seen Ozanam affrighted at the recrudescence of infidel doc
trines, as well as at the honours showered on those in the University,
who distilled venom into their lectures or writings. The Chairs of
M. Quinet and M. Michelet were growing in popularity in the College
of France by the side of the Sorbonne. They were armed against
the Church with passion and with imagination, and with these they
fascinated young men : the fascination of the serpent's eye and the
irridescence of its colours in the brilliant sun of the period.

The young Professor did not rest content with complaining. He
wrote as follows to M. Dufieux on the 5th June, 1843 : " I am making
all possible efforts, feeble though they be, to maintain a vigorous
struggle against the teaching of the Professors in the College of France.
I am working in concert with M. Lenormant, M. Coeur, Professor
of Sacred Eloquence, and several others. While M. Quinet and M.
Michelet are attacking Catholicity itself, under the name of Jesuitism,
I am upholding, in three consecutive lectures, the Papacy, the Friars
and monastic obedience.* I have delivered them to a large audience
composed of the same individuals who stamped and applauded else
where the previous day. There was not any noise. I shall seize the
many opportunities which are sure to arise in my subsequent lectures
of establishing firmly the teaching, benefits and wonders of the Church."

Those courageous lectures were at once published by him. " Read

*See Civilisation chr£tienne au V« siecle, chap. XII.

FOISSET 217

the Correspondent," he wrote to his two brothers. " You will find
in it a summary of my lecture on the Friars ; it is a rejoinder to the
attacks of the Professors of the College of France."

The young professor notified M. Theophile Foisset, the main support
of the Correspondant of his " willingness to enter for the Dissertation
on Voltaire " established for competition by the French Academy.
"All irreligion in France proceeds from Voltaire," he wrote : "I am
not sure if there is any more dangerous enemy to Voltaire than His
tory."

It was through the Correspondant that Ozanam became a close
friend of M. Foisset, whose name occurs here for the first time. He
had resumed, in collaboration with M. de Montalembert, and with
M. Wilson, as manager, the work of defence which had been interrupted
.since 1831. Ozanam, who had visited him in his country -place at
Bligny, Cote d'Or, describes him as "surrounded by a loving family,
devoting his leisure time after his busy magisterial duties to works
of charity and to the cultivation of literature. There, was to be seen a
picture of the dignity of life and of the patriarchal simplicity of the
I7th century magistrates." United in faith and affection, those two
Christian men had prayed together for one another in the little chapel
•attached to the house. A memorable stroll during the silent hours of
the night, in a garden illuminated with lanterns, had led them thither.
What principally attracted them one to the other was a spirit of modera
tion which removed them equally from the extremists of both sides.
His example and advice were very dear to Ozanam, as witness : "You
.are a man of counsel as well as of action. Your intervention will be
probably more necessary than ever, at the opening of a critical campaign
for Catholic interests "

That campaign had just been brilliantly inaugurated by the manifesto
•of M. de Montalembert on The Duty of Catholics in the question of
.the Liberty of Teaching.

That manifesto mentioned the name of Ozanam with great emphasis,
as one of the exceptions in the University. " Yes, indeed, there are
in the University, from the College of France, and the Sorbonne down
to the head-masters of the primary schools, a small number of upright
men, who have what is greater than talent, faith. Christians like M.
Lenormant and M. Ozanam, protest by the publicity of their Christ
ianity and the solidity of their knowledge, against the scandals of their
•colleagues in their lectures. But are such men in the majority in

2i8 FREDERICK OZANAM

University establishments ? Are they at one with their colleagues ?
etc."

The mention of his name, as being in opposition to the main body
of professors, could be a source of danger to M. Ozanam, and the
prudent Foisset believed it was due to Ozanam to show it to him before
it appeared in print in the Correspondant. Ozanam's answer was at
once decided and courageous, as well as being prudent and modest :
" My dear friend, I wish to thank you at once for your kind enclosure.
But I cannot conceal the fact that your communication makes the
matter awkward for me. I should have preferred not to have known
beforehand that my name was to appear in M. Montalembert's article.
There is certainly both honour and danger in being named as an ex
ception to an offensive rule. But it is an honour, and it would be an
act of cowardice on my part to have the reference deleted. I cannot
therefore either accept or reject officially, and I should prefer not to
know of it." He gave his permission and the name appeared. A further
letter conveyed his thanks : "I am grateful to you for having kept
my name in the article." That was the act of a courageous man.

But while offering himself up, Ozanam appealed against the charge
of irreligion made in the article against the majority of the professors
in the University : "If you have carte blanche in the matter of small
corrections, will you please make one in the following connection,
not in my interest but in that of truth."

" It is not true that Catholics in the University are an insignificant
number ; they are — the Archbishop of Lyons has just called them
numerous — in all public functions a considerable minority. Neither
is it true that M. Lenormant and M. Ozanam protest against the in
struction of their colleagues in the Sorbonne, who must not be con
founded with those in the College of France." Ozanam reduces the
number of aggressive professors of heterodox doctrines to two. He
mentions on the other side M. Saint-Marc-Girardin, " who upholds
true, moral, and Christian ideals."

" Then again," he adds, " we have not made any protest because
there was not any occasion for us to do so. We have openly professed
our own faith, refuted opposing doctrines, sought to do our duty as
Christian professors and to serve God by advancing true Science.
But we have not sought to introduce into the Faculty of Paris a divi
sion which does not exist, to create two camps, to engage in battles.
I think, moreover, that it is a matter of great importance to the young

OZANAM AND THE SORBONNE 219

men, that that should not be done. Our lectures must not be regarded
by our colleagues as provocative steps calling for a retort. If there
are many strangers to our faith, they are not to be made enemies."

Pere Lacordaire has summed up beautifully in his funeral notice,
Ozanam's delicate position in the Sorbonne, and the nobility and pru
dence of his behaviour in the circumstances. " In the conflict between
the Church and the University, Ozanam," he wrote, " was the most
awkwardly placed of us all. An ardent Catholic, a devoted friend of
social liberty, and particularly of liberty of conscience, he could not,
however, fail to recognise that he belonged to the body which was the
legal depository of the monopoly of teaching. Was he to break with
the body which had welcomed him so warmly, and had overwhelmed
him with distinctions ? Was he, on the other hand, while remaining
in its midst, to take an active and necessarily prominent part in the war
which would be waged against it ? In the first case, Ozanam would resign
his Chair. Could he be recommended to that course ? In the second,
he was inviting dismissal. Could he be so advised ? On the other
hand, could Ozanam, the Christian Professor, be separated from us ? "

" Ozanam kept his Chair ; that was his post in Truth's critical hour.
He did not expressly attack the body to which he belonged ; that was
the duty of a colleague as well as of one who did not forget kindness.
But he remained in complete unity and touch with those who were
defending with might and main the cause of liberty of teaching."

" Not one of the bonds which united him to the main army was
loosened. He was a part of every meeting, of every Association, of
every inspiration of the time. Therefore the high place, which he
had always occupied in our thoughts and in our ranks, did not abate
one jot nor suffer one moment of distrust. He completely retained
the affection of Catholics and the regard and respect of the body to
which he belonged. Outside both camps he won the sympathy of
that formless and Protean mass called the public, which sooner or
later, determines everything."

When Montalembert had pleaded with brilliancy in the Chamber
of Peers, the cause of Catholic instruction, Ozanam was not slow to
express his admiration : I desire to express my great pleasure and my
pride as a fellow Christian. I recognise the accents of St. Gregory
VII., of St. Anselm, of St. Bernard in that defence of the liberties of
the Church, at once the oldest and the youngest and the most imperish
able of all liberties."

220 FREDERICK OZANAM

But Ozanam demands that, even above the accents of that great
layman, we should first of all hear the voice of the Church in the person
of its pastors : " It is indeed a pleasure to see the controversy drawn
out of the mire of miserable insults and personalities, and raised to
its true elevation by M. de Montalembert at first, and then by the Abbe
de Came, the Abbe de Vatimesnil, Pere de Ravignan, their Lordships
the Bishops, and especially by the Pastorals of the Archbishops of
Lyons and Paris. They are the legitimate representatives of our
rights, whom we can never have occasion to repudiate."

The Correspondent} could stand unfalteringly by their side in the full
light of truth and in the full certainty of rights. That is the duty of ortho
doxy which should never weaken : " I regard as equally dangerous that
spirit of compromise which is willing to yield something of the rigidity of
dogma in discussion, or of the rights of the Church in business affairs."

A matter of a private nature was taking place at that time which
made a great difference to his, and which crowned his wife's happiness.
He wrote to M. Foisset as follows, Low Sunday, 1844 : " In the midst
of my work in Stanislaus College and the Faculty of Literature, I had
to attend to a business matter, which will result in calling my father-
in-law to the position of head of a branch of the Ministry of Education.
It will bring my wife's family near to us. It has been dragging on
its weary course during three months, and although the affair is settled,
the appointment has not yet been signed." What held it in suspense ?
It was the moment when the retrograde legislation of Minister Ville-
main, regulating public instruction, was violently attacked by the
Catholic party. ' You can well imagine," adds Ozanam, "if it be
advisable, in the present trend of affairs, to pay court and expose
oneself to discussions on points of difficulty, in which conscience cannot
yield." He would not pay court, nor expose himself to those dis
cussions. His conscience would not yield. Nor must it be forgotten
that the young Christian who was thus speaking, and who was facing
with such independence public opinion and the views of those in high
place, was only a temporary professor, that is to say, at the mercy of
the administration of the University and removable at will. The signa
ture to the appointment was otherwise obtained. In the month of
April in the following year, 1845, M. Soulacroix entered on the duties
of his high post and of his new home in Paris. His branch dealt with
accounts. It left him little or nothing to do with the administration
of education or with the selection of educational staffs.

DEATH OF FAURIEL 221

In the meantime an event took place which once more raised the
question of Ozanam's future. In the month of July of 1844, M. Fauriel,
permanent Professor of the Chair of Literature, for whom Ozanam
was acting with brilliant success, died suddenly at the age of seventy-
two years. Ozanam mourned for him : " I had in him," he writes
to M. Foisset, " a genial patron who solved many difficulties for me,
one whose kindness ensured for me the occupation of his Chair in his
stead, so long as his infirmity made it impossible for him to appear.
His friendship was my security. His death came as a thunderbolt
to me. It happened prematurely perhaps for his soul, prematurely for
science which will find itself deprived of valuable works which he
had almost completed and which will now be lost,* prematurely
for me, who still needed his advice and protection."

I regard Ozanam's appreciation of M. Fauriel as a masterpiece of
eloquence and erudition, of respect and admiration, of delicacy and
gratitude. But the Christian could not close those lines without
congratulating the savant on having known how to bend his gifted
mind before the mystery of the causes of things, of the First Cause :
" That great intellect, which knew so much, knew also when it knew
nothing. It was a maxim of his that we do not know the beginning
of anything. He knew how to bow down before the regions of mystery,
which he found at the beginning and tne end of all his research. Thence
came the reserve and the modesty, which characterised his pronounce
ments, in which one often found illumination and always kindness."
The writer consulted him on one occasion on a point in history, which
he sought to explain by the ordinary laws of human affairs : " I shall
perhaps astonish you," replied M. Fauriel, " but you do not, in my
opinion, assign its proper importance to Providence."

" What will happen to me now ?" asks the young acting professor.
Ozanam was of opinion that, after four years unexpected success
for which he had sacrificed everything, even his health, during which
he had had nothing but the pleasantest relations with everyone, he
would certainly not be passed over in order that the Chair should be
given to another. He knew further that " the Faculty were also of
that opinion, that the majority of its members would place his name

*The valuable works noted by Ozanam were published after the author's death :
History of the Epic of Chivalry in the Middle Ages. History of Provencal Poetry,
3 vols., 1846. Dante and the beginnings of Italian Poetry and Literature, 2 vols.
in octavo, 1846.

222 FREDERICK OZANAM

first in the list to be submitted to the Minister, merely postponing
the nomination for the Chair until the new Session should open."

On the other hand, the candidate was only thirty ; having regard
to his youth, to the fact that he did not hold scientific Degrees,
and that he had been such a short time in the University, another
view favoured holding over the vacancy until the following year,
to enable him to win his spurs. The course of lectures would remain
the same, but the title for the time being would be that of Acting
Professor.

But the temporary, the removable feature of that position was a
sword of Damocles. Ozanam's charming personality did not tend to
injure him, but it was otherwise with his philosophy, the success of
which in the Sorbonne offended and irritated the followers of Vol
taire on the Siecle and the Constitutionnel, as well as the fanatics of
the College of France and the University. They found all too ready
support from M. Villemain, Minister of Education, whom Catholic
opposition had driven to very distraction ; a fact which was shortly
to become apparent.

In this anxiety of mind, what were Ozanam's thoughts, what did
prudence recommend, what did religion claim ? That we learn from
the following letter : " I shall sacrifice nothing, neither my duty to
the State through imprudence, nor my duty as a Christian through
cowardice." The Christian adds : " What I ask of God is that He
would take in His hands the management of this delicate business.
It may, indeed, be for the good of my salvation that I should not
succeed. If that be so I ask only for strength, resignation and peace
of mind ; resignation to suffer everything, even what is uncertain and
precarious, since God has made all things so, life, death, health,
fortune. He has willed that we should live in the most terrible of
all doubts, whether we are worthy of His love."

Divided between affection for the young professor, and regard for
his own political interests, M. Cousin devised the following expedient
with quite bona-fide intentions : " The Chair of Foreign Literature
was to be offered to M. Ampere, who would be substitute Professor,
M. Ozanam, his close friend, ^ould continue to be Acting Professor ;
an arrangement which would permit M. Ampere to gratify his desire
for foreign travel. However pleasant and flattering it might be for
the one, it was certainly not so for the other, for the position would
remain precarious. Jean Jacques Ampere had no hesitation as to

PROFESSOR AT THE SORBONNE 223

what to do ; he refused point blank. He did more. He availed
himself of the opportunity to urge the appointment of his friend with
all the weight of his influence as a scientist, and with all the warmth
of his friendship.

The Academic Council unanimously presented the name of the
candidate just as the Faculty had done. The Royal Council followed
suit. But M. Villemain seemed afraid to pronounce the final word.
Pursuant to his orders, the notice of the course appeared, with a blank
for the name of the Professor, thus gaming time for reflection. M. le
Clerc had to use more than ordinary skill and determination literally
to snatch the signature from the Minister. "The matter is settled at
last:" wrote Ozanam on the 23rd November, 1844. " It was closed
yesterday when I made the statutory declaration before the Dean.
It became official to-day and will become known to my friends through
all the usual avenues of publicity."

His news was told in thanksgiving. He wrote to Ampere, and in
what exquisite terms ! "I knew well from experience that one needed
friends in adversity, but I did not know that one stood in such need
of them in prosperity. . . . It is meet that you should derive
pleasure from what you have done, you who, next to God, are the
author of all my prosperity, you who received me into the house of
your saintly and distinguished father, who placed my feet first on the
road, who guided me from trial to trial, step by step, to this professor
ial Chair, in which I am now sitting, because the only one worthy of
the position was not willing to occupy it."

Ampere set out for Egypt. Ozanam expressed the wish that " the
recollection of his goodness would accompany him as a sweet blessing
with which God visits beautiful characters."

From this moment a new link was added to the chain of friendship
connecting Ozanam and Ampere. They were engaged on the same
studies. While Ozanam was occupied on the Histoire de la Civilisa
tion chrelienne aux temps barbares, Ampere had just published in 1840
the Histoire litteraire de la France jusqu' au XII* siecle. Was there
any danger of clashing, in coming to such close quarters ? They were
not walking in the same paths. Ampere said with a smile : " I have
taken from you the men of Letters and the men of State : but make
your mind easy, I have left you the missionaries and the saints." It
is none the less true that in the study of the same period they employed
similar literary terms ; so that a contemporary remarked : " When I am

224 FREDERICK OZANAM

reading them I am never sure that the phrase which was commenced
by one has not been finished by the other."

Friendship was acknowledged, Heaven was praised : " It is God,"
Ozanam wrote to Lallier, " Whose merciful love has made my duties
easier, because He knows that I am weak ; doubtless also to prepare
me by a period of happiness for the trials of the future." This humil
ity had its counterpart in his Christian independence. It asserted
that the support of the Faculty, of the Academic Council and of the
Royal Council was not gained, either by the sacrifice of ideals, or by
the compromise of his principles. ' You will learn with pleasure
that neither advances, concessions nor reservations were required
of me. I was taken for what I am, without insisting, as they might
have tried to do, that I should be more prudent in my instruction,
or at least that I should send in a written application, which is quite
usual. They did not wish even to appear to have imposed conditions
on me." That was indeed to know him for what he was. It was
also honourable to him.

When Stanislaus College heard of his promotion, the first feelings
were expressed by the Abbe Caro : " It seemed to each of us that his
appointment was our appointment, that we mounted with him into the
professorial Chair, that his triumph was our triumph. But when we
learned that, according to University regulations, Ozanam as whole-
time professor would be obliged to give up his teaching in the College,
desolation reigned supreme. The students drew up a petition to M.
Villemain praying him to make an exception in their favour, and to
let them continue to have their well-beloved master. One student
was entrusted with the duty of advising M. Ozanam of this unusual
proceeding, and of re-stating their deep and sincere regret.

The letter was as follows : "Sir, we cannot adequately express to
you the surprise and grief with which we learned for the first time yes
terday of the misfortune which has befallen us. Those who have been
with you for a few months only, those who passed a year at your
lectures and who looked forward to passing a second, those whom
other courses have claimed after Rhetoric, have all been equally
affected. I have been charged with the sad duty of communicating
to you that general sense of grief."

" However, all hope has not been abandoned, and we pray you to
support our petition and to help to preserve to us, if it be possible to
do so, our most beloved master. If the claims of secondary instruction

PfiRE DE RAVIGNAN 225

are more burdensome than others, be assured that nowhere will those
duties be repaid with a livelier or more lasting appreciation.

In any case, whatever may be the Minister's decision, we shall never
forget the many acts of kindness which you have showered on us.
Deign to accept our sincere gratitude, and pardon this indiscretion
for the sake of the love and affection which is hereby conveyed
to you by all the students of Stanislaus College."

They did not succeed in keeping their master. M. Villemain had
other matters to concern him. France heard a few days later, on
the 30th December, that her Minister of Education had gone mad.
Jesuits attacked and pursued him. They were everywhere present
to his gaze, even on the pavements of the streets. " The
Jesuits ! The Jesuits !"

War on the Jesuits was then the policy of the day in the State Coun
cil and in Parliament, as well as in the College of France : of Villemain,
Cousin, Thiers, Dupin, Isambert, as well as of Quinet and Michelet.

Those were the days that Ozanam selected to bring Pere de Ravignan
to a Quarterly General Meeting of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul,
which was attended by many students : " I was present at that memor
able meeting," wrote Leonce Curnier. " I still have present to my
eyes the dignified appearance of Pere de Ravignan, the inspired air,
the seraph's glance, when he cried aloud, pointing up to Heaven, at
the close of an address, which inflamed us with a burning desire to
work for the poor : " We shall rest up there." It was not the voice
of a man which we heard, it was the voice of an angel. I have never
experienced to such a degree the power of genius enhanced by holiness."

Ozanam wrote at the close of the Paschal Retreat which had been
given by the holy religious : "After all that has been done to seduce
young men, the way in which they receive and welcome Catholic
addresses is truly marvellous."

There was trouble with the students in Ozanam 's near vicinity.
That was the time when the Sorbonne was the scene of disturbances
which must be mentioned. We shall see Ozanam's calm and intrepid
figure standing forth in the defence of truth and the protection of
liberty.

His own Chair was safeguarded by his popularity. It was not
indeed that he had not noticed a timid and shamefaced spirit of
contradiction arising in his lecture hall. For instance, it could have

been noticed that on one occasion the announcement " Course

p

226 FREDERICK OZANAM

of Foreign Literature " had been altered to "Course of Theology."
Ozanam was told of it as he entered. He merely smiled. He finished
his lecture without reference to the impertinence. As he was about
to leave the Chair he said with disdain but with dignity : "Gentlemen,
I have not the honour to be a theologian, but I have the happiness to
be a Christian ; the happiness to believe and the ambition to devote
my mind, my heart, and all my strength to the service of truth." The
clear and simple expression of faith was received with general applause.

It is also reported that on another occasion strange faces were
noticed in the lecture-hall, exchanging grimaces when a suitable moment
for an outburst seemed likely to arrive. The suitable moment did
not arrive. " We were present," says Dufieux. " The hall was packed,
the crowd overflowed into the corridors : something was in the air.
Ozanam opened his lecture, calm and alert : The Church, its Institu
tion, Associations, Popes, Clergy, Saints. I overheard a remark to
the effect that eloquence could not soar higher. The master had
never gripped his audience better. He brought down the house : the
conspirators applauded as loudly as the rest. He had disarmed them."

We have noticed Montalembert connect, in his manifesto to Catholics,
the name of M. Charles Lenormant with that of Ozanam, as one of the
few Christian Professors in the Sorbonne. He was doing duty for
M. Guizot in the Chair of History. He had been conducting the course
for three years with marked success, but in such a way as to show a
mixed spirit of scepticism and respect for holy things. But the day
had arrived when the Truth of the Gospel was revealed to his elevated
mind, and a public profession of faith became necessary from him as
a man of honour. The audience in the Sorbonne therefore listened
to the reading of the following courageous letter : " I had reached in
my historical course the period of the beginning of the Christian reli
gion. Up to then I had only cast the idle and careless glance of a
man of the world on the facts of Christianity. Henceforward I had
to trace the origin and weigh the proofs with the care and the sense of
responsibility imposed on me by my duty to the public. The results
of that investigation developed slowly but surely. As I advanced
in my task I felt the irreligious prejudices, which I owed to my educa
tion and to my times, growing feebler and feebler and ultimately
disappearing. From coldness, I passed quickly to respect and regard ;
thence directly to Faith. I became a Christian and I desired to co
operate in the making of Christians."

SCENES IN THE SORBONNE 227

It was exactly against that conversion that the storm burst. The
very men who had beaten themselves in vain against the popularity
of Ozanam, sought their revenge against this latter-day Christian
whom they nicknamed the "Sorbonne convert." Those demagogues
of the College of France, M. Michelet and M. Quinet, incited
their infuriated groups secretly against the Chair which was
now grounded on honour and truth. The lectures of M. Lenormant,
which had been much appreciated, now became scenes of impious
disorder and savage violence.

We are now at the close of 1845. Ozanam announced to Lallier
that he had resumed his lectures, informing him at the same time
of the uneasiness which the rowdy opposition to his colleague caused
him : " I have observed the disorders closely and I can assure you
that it is not an uprising of the schools. It has been carefully
arranged in the offices of the revolutionary Press. As that bigoted
•crowd will persist in its hostility, and as the Government is showing
all its usual weakness when it is a question of defending belief, it is
to be feared that the disturbances will be renewed. Even if there
be only a few score rowdies, if they return ten times they will
succeed in closing the course of lectures. But it will not be without
a struggle ; for the Catholic young men have shown themselves firmer
than usual in this matter. It will at least serve to close up our ranks
and strengthen our hearts."

To see " such honourable and beneficent teaching threatened
by intrigue, and betrayed by the cowardice of the administration "
aroused Ozanam's anger : "Ah ! my dear friend, how much evil is
done in this world by the carelessness and the timidity of good people !
As far as I am concerned, I shall do all I can to keep my position
identified with that of M. Lenormant. As long as his lectures con
tinue to be disturbed I shall continue to be present. I shall use all
my influence to recruit young men for the lectures. On Thursday
the 8th January the lectures are to be resumed."

On Thursday the 8th January, Ozanam was present. A volley of
cat-calls heralded M. Lenormant's arrival. He attempted to speak
and was answered with a storm of hissing. Ozanam could not restrain
himself. He jumped up, stood up on his seat and contemplated in
silence for a time the wild outburst, with a mingled glance of pity
and disdain. His bold stand was received with applause from some
of the benches. Repressing the applause, Ozanam recalled the minds

228 FREDERICK OZANAM

of the demonstrators to " that liberty on which they set such store,
and besought them to respect it in the consciences of others." Silence
was restored. The effect of this short speech was that the professor
was enabled to continue, or rather to commence, his lecture, which
was completed almost without interruption.

That armistice could have been the beginning of peace. But the
University administration yielded to violence. It was learned on
the following day that the Course of lectures had been closed by order
of the Government.

M. Lenormant handed in his resignation to take charge of the Cor-
respondant, where we shall find him again.

229

CHAPTER XVIII.
FAMILY LIFE.- WORK.— CHARITABLE ACTIVITY,

AS A FATHER. — HARD WORK AND HAPPINESS. — ANCIENT GERMANY. — M.
GOSSIN. — WORKMEN'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 I4th 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 apprecia
tion of the beautiful in everything. Madame Ozanam threw her soul
into her playing in order to reach his.

Ozanam mentions the names of some friends who called regularly :
the contributors to the Correspondant ; Wilson the director, Dr. Gou-
raud, Count Came, 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, Ampere, junior, had intro
duced 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

230 FREDERICK OZANAM

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 per
ceive 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

AS A FATHER 231

joy of joys. On the 7th August, 1845, Ozanam was able to
write to M. Foisset : " After a succession of favours which deter
mined 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 im
mortal creature, whom God has placed in my hands. What happi
ness 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 edu
cation 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 pater
nity 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

232 FREDERICK OZANAM

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
pay ing 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

HIS WORK 233

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. L6on Bore, a correspondent in Bavaria, he describes it as over
whelming : " 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 His
tory of Breton, Irish, and Saxon Literatures up to the Norman Con
quest. On the other hand, you will find in the Correspondant 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 obliga
tions, 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 2nd century. " The same
scenes are enacted before our eyes : the praetorium 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 Qth
May, 1844, in a touching letter, which M. Ozanam and M. Cor-

234 FREDERICK OZANAM

nudet 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 i5th,
i8th and 2ist 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

AT THE WORKMEN'S MEETING 235

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 13 th February, 1844, the Conference in
Sens, with a President, Secretary-Treasurer and one member constitut
ing 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 congratula
tion : 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 bring
ing 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

236 FREDERICK OZANAM

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 sub
missive 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."*

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 Man
darins. 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

"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. R£camier, 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. Frederick 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.

HIS ILLNESS 237

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 cow
ardly as to believe in such an allocation of duties, as would be an accusa
tion 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 alarm
ing 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 return
ing. 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 profit
able and agreeable, calculated to occupy the mind and fortify the body.
M. de Salvandy, Minister for Education, met that difficulty by entrust
ing 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 ?

238 FREDERICK OZANAM

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.

239

CHAPTER XIX.
MISSION TO ITALY.

FLORENCE. — ROME.— PIUS IX. — AUDIENCES AND OVATIONS. — VENICE. —
ECHALLENS.

1847.

The itinerary of the journey, which began in December, 1846, was
through the South of France, via Genoa and Florence to Rome, as the
principal centre for research and piety. When he should have taken
up his winter quarters, the Professor promised himself a run at his
leisure through Umbria, the Romagnas, Ravenna, Venice, and Lom-
bardy. He intended to penetrate through the Spliigen Pass and the
country around Chur, as far as St. Gall and Einsiedeln, to which ancient
German and monastic monuments were calling him. Then, following
the Rhine from Basle to Cologne, he would take the route to France
through Belgium. He would return to France with body and mind
refreshed, laden with souvenirs and documents for the fulfilment of
his literary mission, and with a new strength and courage for the
resumption of his lectures and his activities.

" That memorable journey was made," in M. Ampere's phrase, "in
a state of perpetual enchantment. Ozanam had a continual flow of
that good humour and gaiety which constituted one of the prin
cipal charms of his company. His enquiring and enthusiastic mind
never wearied of learning and admiring, now the things of nature,
now of Art. He took copious notes, read numerous inscriptions,
visited places illustrious in history, and scenes revivified by his imagina
tion. Some of his notes have grown into volumes, as we shall see.
The greater part have remained unfinished as they were first sketched
out. We shall select some passages from his published notes, which
best exemplify his Christian mind.

Ozanam's notes describe himself to us on me 8th January, 1847, on
the top of the dome of Florence whence " his eye swept the city of

240 FREDERICK OZANAM

marble, surrounded by its green hills." What each of those wonder
ful buildings suggest to him is the thought of the men who conceived
them, of the life which throbbed in them, of the names of the saints
and men of genius who immortalised them, of the artists who chiselled
or decorated them during that period of inspiration and art which
includes Michael Angelo. He gives the following appreciation of the
latter : " That great man was probably the greatest of all Christian
sculptors, but he was the last. He interred the natural sculpture of
the Middle Ages right nobly, and left behind him the bad example
of having sought to astonish mankind, when he might have chosen
to edify and instruct them."

Nothing impressed him more than the proud inscription which he
read on the tower of the Vieux-Palais : "/• C. Rex, Flor. elect. S.P.Q.
Jesus Christ, King of Florence, elected by the Senate and the people."
He adds " I recognise in that a people who wished to obey God only,
and who, alas ! did not obey Him always."

In Pisa, the pilgrim of art and faith paid his pious addresses to the
Cathedral, the Duomo. Viewing that Notre Dame, so like a lance,
so light in construction, he asked himself " if it be indeed raised from
the ground or if, having descended from heaven, it simply rests there,
with the eighty-four columns of its five naves, recalling the palms
of the eternal gardens."

The journey from Florence to Rome was made in easy relays, in a
carriage or even an open car, stopping to admire, to learn, or to pray,
wherever there was anything to admire or any special place of prayer,
admiring and praying doubly because his wife and he were together.
Thus, on returning from a visit to the old and curious Church of San
Gemignano : " It was on the I7th January, the feast of St. Anthony.
We were descending the slopes of San Gemignano. The sun had
set, but the air was so balmy that we did not feel the cold through
our cloaks. The pleasure of being together on the evening of my feast
will remain one of the most charming memories of the journey."

On the 2nd February, 1847, the Feast of the Presentation, Ozanam
assisted for the first time at a Pontifical function in the Quirinal Chapel :
"At first I only saw the Pope in the distance on his throne, from which
he was distributing the candles of Candlemas. But when the procession
approached and I could scan closely the features of the Vicar of Jesus
Christ, I was moved to tears. I saw that face so sweet and holy, those
eyes and that mouth expressive of such charity, that head which was

PIUS IX 241

beginning to blanch under the weight of the Pontificate. As he was
entering the Choir, I read the words of the Introit of the day which
are so applicable to Pius IX : Veniet desideratm cunctis gentibus et
implebit domum istam gloria. That ancient house of the Quirinal
is filling with glory and the eyes of all nations are looking to him to
day."

On the I3th February Monsieur and Madame Ozanam went to the
Seminary Church of St. Apollinaris to receive the blessing of the Holy
Father, and the Holy Communion from his own hands. ' The sub
lime moment arrived when the Pope, having finished giving Holy
Communion to the ecclesiastics, expressed the wish to give the
Host to the people. The guards opened a passage. The Pope des
cended the altar and a movement took place among the crowd to come
to him at the Holy Table. The steps were filled with two rows of
the faithful, crowded together, moved even to tears. The dowager
Queen of Saxony, poor Italians, men and women of different nations
were all there : and my Amelie by my side, as we have always been
in our happiness, as we hope always to be to the end of this life and in
the next. The sacred procession approached. I saw the marvellous
figure of Pius IX illumined by the candles, moved by the sacredness
of the moment, appearing nobler and gentler than ever. I kissed his
ring, the ring of the Fisherman which has sealed so many immortal
acts during the course of eighteen centuries ! Then I would look no
more, for I wished to concentrate my mind on Him who is the Master
of all and in Whose presence even Pontiffs are but dust."

The rest of that letter is devoted to Pius IX :" Pius IX, the conqueror
of all hearts ; it was by winning affections that the earlier Popes con
quered all Europe. You will see that it will be the Bishop of Rome
who will reconcile the world and the Papacy." Pius IX, the saint
of God : " It is three centuries, the time of Pius V, since the Church
has witnessed the canonisation of a Pope. This Pope will indeed link
up the long chain of saints from the Chair of Peter."

Then there is Pius IX in his private life and in his private audience.
Ozanam writes of him as follows on the yth February : "We have had
the great honour of being received in special audience, and His Holiness
was gracious enough to insist on my wife being seated, and on patting
and blessing my little child of a year and a half. My child, Marie,
behaved like a little angel, kneeling of her own accord before the
Pope, joining her hands with an air of veneration, as if he were the

Q

242 FREDERICK OZANAM

good God Himself. The Holy Father spoke to us of France, of the
youth in the schools, of the duties of education, with inexpressible
nobility, feeling and grace. I seized the opportunity to speak to
him about the Society of St. Vincent de Paul. The Pope answered
that he knew the Society and the good work which the young men were
doing in their visits to the poor and to the sick. ' It is doing
so much good in France !' he exclaimed. There is so much Charity
being accomplished. All our hope for the future lies in young men/
Then he added with impressiveness : 'Religion is the most beautiful
blossom that can open on this earth.' '

" When I said that the deserved popularity of his name would
multiply conversions to Catholicism, he replied : ' I am well aware
that God has performed the miracle of changing unreasonable preju
dices suddenly into respect and love. What I cannot understand is
that He has deigned to make use of such an unprofitable servant as I
for such a change.' Those words were spoken with such sincerity and
humility that, coming from the Vicar of God, they moved us to tears."

The popularity of Pius IX was the fruit and the reward of his liberal
policy. Elevated to the See of Peter on the I7th June, 1846, he had
inaugurated his reign with a series of spontaneous acts of reform.
Amnesty, revision of the Civil and Criminal Code, the organisation of
a Civil Guard, the creation of a Council of State, had been received
one after another with growing enthusiasm by the Italian people.
Ozanam's noble spirit and simple heart were amazed and delighted.
He describes the Papal Blessing on Easter Sunday from the basilica
of St. Peter : the improvised escort which conducted the Pope in
triumph back to the Quirinal, the streets which, as he was passing by
night, were suddenly illuminated as if by enchantment : " The people
are captivated by their Bishop and their Prince," he said ; " they
speak of him in extravagant terms. All this has gone on for almost
ten months. That is a long time in an age in which popularity is
ephemeral."

The principal charm of the journey, next to seeing the Pope, was the
visit to the tombs and the earthly traces of the saints and martyrs.
He wrote as follows to Lallier : "All this veritable pilgrimage is full
of spiritual consolation. We passed one half of our time by the side
of the tombs of the great men and sainted women, whose spiritual
value one appreciates better after seeing where they lived, moved,
and had their being, and where they now repose."

ROME 243

They found in Rome, the one priest who was best qualified to intro
duce them to the soul of Christian Rome. " We received Holy Com
munion at the Abbe Gerbet's Mass in St. Peter's, on the very spot
where the holy apostle is buried : there, for more than one hour, we
remembered in our prayers all those whom we love.

"We went down five times into the catacombs, nearly always with
the Abbe Gerbet, who explained the sub-structure and the mural
decorations. He generally closed the visit with a lecture on the
marytrs and the recitation of the Litanies.* I know nothing in the
world more touching than the sight of the cemeteries of the early
Christians, nothing better calculated to quicken faith nor to strengthen
souls. Nowhere can be seen better the innocence, simplicity, and
invincible courage of the infant Church, the signs and tokens of its
divinity."

The same letter returns to Pius IX and young Italy : " I regard it
as one of the greatest pieces of good fortune in my life to have been
in Rome during the winter of 1847, to have witnessed the glorious in
auguration of the Pontificate of Pius IX : to have seen at close quarters
that most admirable Pope, to have been present at the universal
awakening of Italy. The popularity or unpopularity of a Pope is
certainly not a matter that should strengthen or shake faith ; but
the heart is none the less filled with a just pride at seeing the Father,
in whom one believes, surrounded by such admiration and love."

The happiness of the life in Rome, an enthusiasm mingled with
piety, would have been an unmixed blessing for Ozanam, whom be
sides it was beginning to restore to health, if it had not been clouded
by a cause for profound grief. He had been there for a month and a
half, when he heard on the third of March, that his brother-in-law had
.succumbed to an unexpected attack of his infirmity. "Our well-
beloved brother," he wrote, " who had lived the life of a martyr,
died the death of a saint. At the age of 23 he quitted this earth, I
will not say merely with resignation, but with a joy that was divine.
His death makes a terrible void in our family circle. He was its soul,
his sufferings were our grief, his virtue and serenity were our consola
tion, his high intellect our pride and our hope. His sister has not yet
recovered from the terrible blow. For three weeks my sole care has

*The Abbe Gerbet was then working at the third volume of his Christian
Rome. " If we had him in France," wrote Ozanam to Foisset, " would he not
.be the natural successor to Ballanche in the French Academy ?

244 FREDERICK OZANAM

been to console her in her affliction. It was most desirable that she
should return at once to Paris. But the very nature of her illness
made that impossible."

" However, the sympathy of kind friends, particularly of the Abbe
Gerbet, the grandeur of the ceremonies of Holy Week, the certainty
that the dear departed had exchanged a painful existence here below
for the happiness of eternal life, all combined to make Amelie some
what reconciled." A later letter stated that the pilgrims had commenc
ed their itinerary by way of Italy, not passing through Germany,
" so as not to delay the moment of return to the family circle."

Ozanam had desired previously to visit Monte Casino, where he
now spent two days by himself : " I had the great happiness of receiv
ing Holy Communion at the tomb of St. Benedict, and of finding all
Benedictine tradition on record in the excellent library of the Abbey.
The good fathers showed me their precious manuscripts, from which
I made some extracts. That will not be the least interesting portion
of my literary booty.* Those good religious know how to do every
thing except to keep one warm. I had like to have perished amid
their beautiful records, and I returned with a severe cold which cul
minated in a feverish attack. Fortunately the attack lasted only
one day, and left me well enough to be present on Monday afternoon
at the audience which the Sovereign Pontiff had graciously accorded
me. I had to thank him for the great assistance which he had deigned
to afford me in my research."

Another motive for that visit was " to place in the ;Holy Father's
hands addresses from the Society of St. Vincent de Paul. It was nine
o'clock at night when I was permitted to enter, and His Holiness,
although much fatigued after the day's work, received me so cordially
that I was deeply moved. He enquired after my wife, my little child
and my brothers with charming friendship and familiarity."

The Romans excelled themselves in popular demonstrations. On
the 2 ist April, two days before leaving Rome, Ozanam was able to
view, from the top of the Coliseum where he had secured a seat, the
great spectacle of a magnificent banquet to eight hundred guests
organised by the municipality over the baths of Titus, in honour
of the 2,6ooth anniversary of the foundation of Rome. It was

* Those documents were printed in 1850 under the title of : Documents inSdits
pour servir a I'histoire litter ire de I' Italic depuis le VII* siecle jusqu' au XIIIe~
Preceded by a long Preface on Les £coles en Italic aux temps barbares.

OVATION FOR THE POPE 245

merely an occasion for speech-making. Many addresses were
delivered, among others, by the distinguished Professor Orioli,
by the son-in-law of Manzoni and by the Marquis d'Azeglio.
The event reached its climax in a tremendous ovation in honour
of Pius IX, who had recently published an Edict broadening
the basis of provincial representation. A torchlight procession was
held at night. It was marshalled at the Piazza, del Popolo and marched
by the Corso and the Piazza Colonna to the Piazza Monte Cavallo.
Ozanam describes the scene to his brother in these words :

"One thing alone was wanting to complete the happiness of our
tour. We should have very much liked to see one of those popular
ovations of which we had heard so much. It would have been a great
privation to Amelie to depart without again seeing the Pope and carry
ing with her a final blessing . . ."

"On Tuesday evening, the 22nd, we were informed that all was
ready to give thanks to the Pope for his new edict. There was to be
a great torchlight procession. We hurried down to the Corso with
the Abbe Gerbet and some other friends who had come to bid us
good-bye. The place of meeting was at the Piazza del Popolo, where
the torches were handed out. We saw the starting of the triumphal
procession, which was headed by a band followed by a column of torch-
bearers, estimated at 6,000 men, marching in perfect order. There
were middle-class people, workmen in overalls, priests in their soutanes,
all united by the one sentiment. Viva Pio nono \ As the procession
advanced to the Corso, houses were illuminated on the way, every
story being decorated with flags and mottoes. We followed the crowd
to the Piazza Colonna, to reach by a short-cat the Piazza Monte Cavallo
whither they were bound. The Piazza was already black with people.
We saw the arrival of the bands and the torchbearers, who made room
for themselves and formed a square around the Edict. This was
borne as a banner before the gates of the Papal Palace.

"After some pieces had been discoursed by the band a great shout
was raised, the shout of 50,000 men. The window on the balcony
was opened and the Sovereign Pontiff appeared, accompanied by two
Prelates and retainers bearing torches. He bowed right and left
with captivating grace. The acclamation and shouts of welcome
redoubled ; but this is what most appealed to me. The Pope raised
his hand and behold ! but one word Zitto \ (hush !) was heard, and
in less than a minute silence reigned supreme over that enthusiastic

246 FREDERICK OZANAM

multitude. Then the voice of the Pontiff was raised in benediction.
He stretched out his hand and made the Sign of the Cross. When he
had pronounced the solemn words of blessing, the sound of a grand
Amen was heard from one end of the multitude to the other. Nothing
could be more impressive and beautiful than the prayer of an entire
city with its Bishop, at that advanced hour of the night under
stars set in a superb sky ! It was also a religious act, for as soon as
the Pope had retired from the balcony all torches were extinguished
at the same moment. The only light now cast on the scene was the
flare from some Bengal lamps on the terraces of the palaces close by

"At half -past nine we were among the last to leave the Piazza del
Quirinale, and we returned through streets as silent and as deserted
as if it were midnight. The Romans had gone to rest like good
children, who had come to say good-night to their father before
retiring."

Ozanam left the next day. We do not intend to follow him on the
second part of his itenerary into Umbria, the land of saints and of holy
legends, into which his Etudes franciscaines will bring us again. " All
that portion of our Italian journey," he writes, " has been embittered,
and it is through a veil of sadness that we saw Assisi, Ravenna, Venice,
and other wonders. As we advance in years, is there not always a veil
of sadness before our eyes, and must we not steel ourselves so to regard
the beautiful things of this earth from which we are soon to tear our
selves away."

Ozanam's ten days in Venice were a period of enchantment. He
arrived at night in a gondola. The unexpected view of the Piazza
Grande garlanded with lights, drew from him expressions of joy and
admiration. " On the right and on the left were the Palaces of the
Procurator with the Campanile ; at the further end St. Mark's, its
carved facade, its domes and its crosses; on turning around the
Piazzetta, the superb frowning Ducal Palace, the columns of St. Mark
and St. George, and then the sea. ... At this point real vision failed
me and I dreamed ; it seemed to me that all this fairyland must dis
appear at the first cold rays of dawn. It was ten o'clock at night ;
one heard music on all sides ; groups of men and young women were
standing in the porticos. I was beginning to appreciate the
the charm of that city of magic and the cause of its destruction.

" Day broke. Ten times I have seen the sun rise over Venice, and
I realised as many times that my dream had not vanished. Venice

DEATH OF BALLANCHE 247

attracted me more than I thought possible. . . . What charming
hours, what happy all-too-fleeting moments in the gondolas, on the
Lido, where we felt the gentle movement of the waters of the Adriatic !
What interesting pilgrimages to the good Armenians of St. Lazare,
who do the honours of their little monastery of red brick and laughing
gardens ; to the Isles of Muranno and Torcello where ancient sanctuaries
survive a dead prosperity !

" But these joyous sights were tinged with an element of sadness.
I saw the three masts despoiled of the banners of the three kingdoms,
which were formerly the glory of the Republic, and on the Piazzetta
were Austrian cannon with Hungarian grenadiers on guard."

Ozanam is to be found in the early days of June resuming his journey
to France through Switzerland. He was a pilgrim of history at St.
Gall, that early centre of Christian civilisation for Germany. He had
expected to find traces of St. Columbanus and of the great Western
saints in that monastery. He arrived on the next day at Einsiedeln,
where he mingled with the pilgrims from the Cantons and from the
Tyrol, at the feet of Our Lady of the Hermits.

He was in Geneva on the I5th June with his friend, Dr. Dufresne.
Opening a newspaper at random he learned of the death of M. Ballanche.
He was much grieved at it. Ozanam unbosomed himself to Jean-
Jacques Ampere in the following letter dated the iyth : "When I last
shook the hand of our venerable friend, I never thought that he was
to form one of the number, alas, so large ! of those whom I should not
see again. Or rather, he is indeed one of those whom we shall see
again, if we are worthy. That great pure soul, after a full Christian
life crowned by a happy death, has departed to swell the circle of
blessed souls, who are expecting and attracting us."

" But for us here below, that is a loss which creates a mighty void
in the already thin ranks of that refined literary generation which was
thrown up by the Revolution to cover its ruins with immortal bloom !
WThat a solitary figure is M. de Chateaubriand to-day, who is now the
sole surviving patriarch of the companions of his earthly pilgrimage,
and who does not know where to turn for consolation because they are
no more ! What a source of grief for you who lose the dearest friend
of your illustrious father, and for me who miss the best friend of my
young days."

" Permit us, my dear friend, to mingle our tears with yours, afflicted
as we are with a like grief. We know only too well, from a recent

248 FREDERICK OZANAM

bereavement, that all sympathy is sweet, even that coming from
lowly sources."

One of his last days in Switzerland was given over to a pilgrimage
to a dear and hallowed spot. It was a pilgrimage of altogether domestic
interest, having for Ozanam the dearest recollections of any scene in
those mountain valleys. His description reproduces the scene fully.

He relates that it was on the 2ist June that he remembered that
" half way between Lausanne and Verdun was the village of Echallens
whither his grand-father Nantas had fled during the late months of
the Terror, and of which his mother had often spoken." He made up
his mind to visit it. " What would I not have given," he exclaimed,
" to know in which house my forebears dwelt ! I saw the copses
and paths where they picked wild strawberries. The Carthusian
uncle preceded them as a guide, and when he discovered a cluster of
strawberries he called his happy nieces, ' Come girls, they are quite
ripe !' They returned with their baskets full of that luscious little
fruit, which they ate with excellent cream. I paid a visit to the
Church where my dear mother made her first Communion under the
direction of the good Cure, who often said to her, ' We shall both go
to Heaven !' It was alas ! as my mother had described it, divided
into two parts, one for Catholic, and one for Protestant worship. The
dear Church is very badly kept, yet I prayed in it with more fervour
than usual. I thanked God for the favours He had bestowed in this
same place on the exiles. I prayed for my dear mother only because
it is a duty to pray for the dead. As I believe she is happy and power
ful in Heaven, I asked her to watch over us, to help us to conclude
safely this long drawn-out journey, and above all to obtain for her
children some of her sweet virtues.

" My wife and my mother-in-law prayed with me, and my darling
Mary knelt quite seriously at the altar rails. Amelie gathered some
flowers on the height on which the Church is perched.

" They are not the same flowers that our dear mother trod as she
went to Mass, but they are like them, and please God we, too, shall be
like her."

The eight months tour amid such enchanting scenes had been
beneficial to Ozanam as well as to his family. He wrote as follows to
Lallier : " As for health, mine is not at all bad, and my wife has got
stronger. What we cannot sufficiently thank Providence for is that
during the whole period of eight months, our dear child has not had

ILLUSIONS 249

two days' sickness. That freedom from human complaints would
confirm me in the impression that she is a little angel, did she not give
way occasionally to fits of violent temper."

The sojourn was beneficial to his mind, which had been broadened
by the contemplation of those impressive scenes ; it was soothing
to his heart which was now filled with such fair hopes. But were
these latter not mere illusions which would be transformed by the
malice of men into so many bitter disappointments ? That is so, but
it is none the less so that Ozanam's enthusiasm for the progressive
policy of Pius IX. was shared by the large majority of French Catholics.
As far as Ozanam was concerned, that enthusiasm was not the effect
of emotion and enthusiasm, but the result of observation and con
viction, which he longed to unfold and to maintain as a politician and
a Christian.

250

CHAPTER XX.
THE REVOLUTION OF 1848.

PONTIFICAL POLICY.— " ROME'S DANGERS AND HOPES."— THE FEBRUARY
REVOLUTION.— POLITICAL CANDIDATURE. — " THE PARTY OF CON
FIDENCE."

Ozanam reached Paris in the early days of August, 1847. He found
himself importuned by so many hurried callers and so many business
matters in arrears, that, before resuming his lectures, he asked for
some days rest and peace in Arminvilliers in Brie, whither M. de
Francheville, his friend and collaborator on the Correspondent, had
invited him.

There he, his wife and child enjoyed the quiet hospitality of a feudal
castle still guarded with moat and draw-bridge, and buried in woods
which called up for him in some sort his beloved Middle Ages.

There the Correspondent brought to his notice an article from the
pen of M. Foisset on Lamartine's Histoire des Girondins. That work
of the poet was the event of the season. It was the almost unreserved
glorification of the politicians of the Legislative Assembly and of the
Convention, with all their errors, faults, depredations and crimes
acquitted of malice, and set off with all the charm of poetry. M.
Foisset's article restored the balance and Ozanam hastened to con
gratulate him on his castigation of the work without touching the
author : " Let me tell you," he said, " that I have read many courageous
and Christian appreciations of the Girondins. Irascimini et nolite pec-
care. It recalls the beautiful fresco in the Vatican which depicts the
angels whipping Heliodorus, who had desecrated the temple. They
seem to me to have lent you their scourges. Yet one feels that they
arm a friendly hand which, while shattering the idol, seeks to find and
touch the Christian heart which was so lately beating in his breast !
Will you not add something to that appreciation ? It is, if I am not
mistaken, one of the best things you have done. Will you not work

REAPPEARANCE IN THE SORBONNE 251

it up into a volume, which we should all wish to possess, of which we
shall all be proud and which is now greatly needed ?"

Could one repudiate in more formal terms the historical value of
the work or break with the historian, while reserving for the man that
feeling of pity, which refused to despair of repentance and mercy ?

He added that " all contemporary scandals and apostasies are
extinguished at the moment by the brilliancy of the rising sun of
Pius IX."

It is in the full blaze of that " rising sun" that Ozanam appeared
before his students in the Sorbonne at his opening lecture. The date
was the 2ist December, 1847. An overcrowded audience gave him an
enthusiastic welcome. He replied with deep emotion in the following
melancholy and tender words : " On my reappearance in this chair,
to which you have given me such a warm welcome, I must first ask
you to excuse the long absence caused by the state of my health : then
the postponement of my lectures, which will alas ! long continue to
show the effects of my shattered strength. But in seeking the fair
Italian sky I was less distant from you than you thought. I carried
with me all my anxiety for the success of a course of instruction, which
you had made very dear to me, all the questions which we had been
accustomed to examine together. I did well in doing so, for what
constitutes the value of a journey is the thoughts which one carries,
the ideals which one holds, and which will have new light brought to

bear on them by new scenes and new minds I believe I have

learned that lesson in my eight months pilgrimage, and I bring you a
token, as the pilgrims of the Middle Ages were wont to bring back with
them a branch cut from the palm-trees of the East."

The early months of 1848, immediately following Ozanam's Italian
trip, were for him and his, one of those rare periods of untroubled
felicity, which must be rapidly enjoyed for they are fugitive. He
expresses himself as follows to Ampere : " We enjoy with profound
gratitude this short period of happiness, which God has deigned to give
us. In the first place domestic happiness : My dear Amelie, who had
had such indifferent health so long, is now fairly robust. Our darling
Marie is wonderfully well, she is growing tall without growing thin ;
she is now at the happiest period of infancy, being old enough to talk,
to understand, to caress ; too young yet to study or to be corrected.
In addition, we still enjoy the memory of last year's beautiful journey,
the pleasures of which have not yet disappeared. We have also friends

252 FREDERICK OZANAM

who are, in a way, yours too. It is not necessary to tell you what
consolation is to be found in them in our good and bad days. I am
not speaking of my wife's family, nor of my brothers whom you do
not know, but whose affectionate friendship is very dear to us."

Then he comes back on himself and his loving impulses towards
the Giver of all good gifts : " I have acted very badly in not showing
more gratitude. Youth is flying and I do not feel that I am improving.
In three months more I shall be 35 years of age : nel mezzo del cammin
di nostra vita. Supposing that I complete the journey, I fear to find
myself at the end with empty hands."

But the moment was near at hand when politics were about to
disturb the halcyon days of the publicist. The Comte de Monta-
lembert had on the nth January, 1848, enlisted the support of the
Chamber of Peers. That Chamber had, in the name of the country,
unanimously supported him in the following amendment to the address
to the King :

" A new era of civilisation is opening for the Italian States. We
pledge our moral and material support to the magnanimous Pontiff
who is inaugurating that era with a prudence only equalled by his
courage. We support likewise those sovereigns who follow in his
footsteps on that path of pacific reform, on which governments and
peoples can march amicably together." Ozanam, still under the
influence of his Roman trip, was amazed that the Catholic Press did
not attune itself to that enthusiasm. " That, too," he said, " after
15 months of a Pontificate which recalls Gregory II. and Alexander
III., and which seems destined to cement the alliance between Chris
tianity and Liberty."

He wrote to M. Foisset complaining that the Correspondant had
not yet reviewed in a serious manner " the course of events which
will perhaps distinguish our century from all others." That was as
much as to offer to do it. He made it the subject of a remarkable
• address to the Catholic Study Circle, and subsequently of an article
which reproduced and completed the address under the title : Des
Dangers de Rome et de ses Esperances which was published in the
Correspondant of the loth February, 1848.

Much to my regret, I can only present here a brief summary of those
twenty-three closely printed pages of the Review. They constitute
one of Ozanam 's writings in which he displayed great genius, inex
haustible treasures of learning, ardent convictions, and persuasive

DANGERS AND HOPES OF ROME 253

eloquence. The article is a master-piece. But it is not to be found
in the complete edition of his works. When he proceeds to state that
the responsibility for the article is his alone, he leaves himself quite
free to balance the dangers and the hopes of the reforming policy of
Pius IX. The dangers are from without and within ; from without,
the supporters of the Austrian policy, the absolutists, the beaten party ;
from within, vested interests. There is a retrograde party which is
against all reform, and an impatient party that wants to reach the
ultimate goal at once ; there are the Zelanti, and the extremists, who
are still more advanced, who, acknowledging Pius IX. as King of all
Italy, alarm, and throw into opposition, every cabinet in Europe.
Are not these traitors ?

While blessing Pius IX., Ozanam defends equally strongly the
policy of Gregory XVI. He does full justice to the Society of Jesus,
controverting the recent pamphlet of the Abbe Gioberti, II Gesuita
moderno, " which furnished headlines for incendiary placards."

When Ozanam passes from the consideration of the dangers to the
hopes, he finds many causes for optimism. They centre around
Pius IX., the good people of Pius IX., the friends of Pius IX, the far-
seeing and illustrious Catholic patriots of all Italy. He mentions
the names of Count Balbo, Marquis d' Azeglio, Tomasseo, Orioli,
Cantu, Capponi, Rosmini, Ventura. He is delighted with the love
of the Romans for their prince ; but he is not blind to the fact that
in certain cases this love is excessive, and may prove compromising.
Some of these are Italians, whom he excuses. But some are Catholics
as well. He seeks to reassure himself as to their loyalty, emphasising
" the faith of that people, whose enthusiasm for their Pontiff-King
springs from religion. Now, is not religion the guarantee of order and
loyalty, even as love finds its greatest expression in liberty ?"

But the alpha and omega of Ozanam's hopes is the personality of
the Pope : " Such is my strongest hope, and, as it was in my heart that
it began to exist, I should wish to see it enthroned in every heart."
But his mind also approves it. He loves Pius IX. through emotion
because he is good and wills good ; but also through reason, because he
is wise and prudent. He regards him as crowned with all the virtues :
purity, charity, strength. His humility surprises, his piety moves, his
speech edifies. He finds each of his decisions tempered in the fire of
prayer, steeped in tears shed in the presence of God. Is not that a
pledge of their lofty inspiration and of their effectiveness ? " In a

254 FREDERICK OZANAM

word," he adds, " this Pope is a saint such as God has not given to the
Pontificate since St. Pius V."

Does that mean that Pius IX. is to march on to the triumph of his
policy on a road strewn with palms ? " Certainly not," replies
Ozanam in all seriousness. " I believe, on the contrary, that the
future has the most serious difficulties in store for Pius IX. That I
believe for the glory of the Pope. God does not raise up such men
for ordinary difficulties. Without that, his task would be too easy,
his name could not occupy its due place in history. His barque may
have passed over tranquil waters, let us look out for storms ; only let
us not be afraid like the disciples of little faith. Christ is in the barque
and is not asleep. He never watched better than now."

This startling article was to have a still more startling conclusion.
Ozanam, the historian of the barbarians' conversion, recalls the fact
that from the 6th to the Qth century, Pope Gregory the Great, and
after him Pope Gregory the Third, broke with Byzantium which had
abandoned the defence of the Church, and turned to the barbarians,
who as children of the Church, were to be her hope and her strength.
It seemed to him that that former evolution of Rome in the direction
of the barbarians was not without its analogy, and that to-day she
should turn to the masses of the people " dear to the Church because
they are the multitude, the multitude of souls who must be won and
saved, because they represent poverty which God loves, and work
which generates energy." He concludes on that point with courage :
" Conquer repugnance and dislike and turn to democracy, to the mass
of the people to whom we are unknown. Appeal to them not merely
by sermons but by benefits. Help them, not with alms which
humiliate, but with social and ameliorative measures, which will free
and elevate them. Let us go over to the barbarians and follow Pius IX."

Ozanam was misunderstood. The latter appeal caused alarm. The
word democracy called forth the dread figure of the Terror ; the name
barbarians signified Communists. The historical allusion was also
lost. Ozanam was more disappointed than surprised. " I expected
protests and remonstrances," he wrote two days after the publication
of the article. " I have not been disappointed in that." On the other
hand warm support of zealous Catholics was not wanting. The
venerable Abbe Desgenettes signified his approval. Pere Lacordaire
shared his views and was only astonished that they could be regarded
as advanced. M. Foisset had some remarks to make, but in such a

LET US GO OVER TO THE BARBARIANS 255

friendly tone that he never appeared to Ozanam " so generous, so
kind, and so insistent, as in those few lines, which are those that one
keeps by one and reads and reads again," — " I quite expected," he
continued, " that my sincerity would displease many. I do not raise
contentious matters with pleasure, and only have done so from a sense
of duty. — You, my dear friend, were of my opinion in October. May
I not hope that we are still in accord ? If that is not so, it is I who
have failed to express myself correctly, and that must be so since you
have misunderstood me."

"To leave Byzantium and go over to the barbarians," he explains,
"'is to leave the camp of statesmen and Kings, who are slaves to
selfish and dynastic interests, who made the treaties of 1815, the
Talleyrands, and the Metternichs, for the camp of the people and the
nation. To go over to the people, is, following the example of Pius
IX., to interest ourselves in the people, who have needs and no rights,
who justly claim a larger part in the management of public affairs,
who demand work and food ; who do not read the Histoire des Girondins,
who do not give banquets to reformers, and who most certainly do not
dine at them ; who do follow false guides, but for want of better. / To
go over to the people is to cease to play the part of the Mazzinis, of
the Ochsenbeins and of the Henri Heines, and to devote ourselves
instead to the sendee of the mass of the people, in rural as well as in
urban areas. / It is in that sense that to go over to the barbarians
signifies to go over to the mass of the people, but it is to with
draw them from their barbarity, to make them good citizens and good
followers of Christ, to elevate them in morality and truth, to make
them fit for, and worthy of the liberty of the children of God."/

Ozanam, in handling this burning topic and in his practical con
clusions, came down from the regions of dogmatic truth to that open
plain swept with political upheavals and storms, of which it is written
that " God has given them for the distraction of man." It is not to -A>
be wondered at that his ideals met with contradiction and misrepre
sentation and that his heart was wounded in such a way that it never
recovered. /

Foisset had found this fault with Ozanam 's article that " it had
exaggerated the wrongs and mistakes of the conservative class, while
it extenuated those of the revolutionary party, that he had minimised
the causes for fear and unduly emphasized those for hope." It does
seem indeed that Ozanam had not taken sufficient account of fears, which

256 FREDERICK OZANAM

were to be too soon alas ! justified by events. He did not see sufficiently
clearly, concealed behind those who were impatient for reform, the
action of secret revolutionary societies, the hand of Mazzini guiding
the movement which was to bring down the Pope and the Papacy,
sedulously laying the dangerous trap which has been called " the
conspiracy of acclamation." The fact is, that the hand which is now
clearly visible, was not then seen by passing observers such as the
French pilgrim./ He, as well as the multitude, was deceived ; liberal
and honourable France, its Parliament, Montalembert, all who in
union with Ozanam had acclaimed the wisdom, courage, and prudence
fj- of the great Reformer, were deceived. Pius IX. himself was deceived./
His only mistake was to have believed in the possibility of good, his
greatest cause for grief was the ingratitude of men. There was one
thing and one thing only wanting to make his movement acclaimed
as the wonder of the age and that one thing was, Success. It was
snatched from his hands by the malice of man. /

Ozanam 's reply to M. Foisset was dated the 22nd February. The
Revolution burst on the 24th, overturning Louis-Phillipe's throne
and proclaiming the Republic.

It was at a period long prior to that, in the year 1834, that Ozanam,
then aged twenty-one, formulated his political programme in the
following terms : " I do not repudiate any form of government ; I
regard them as different instruments to make men better and happier.
" I believe in authority as a means, in liberty as a means, in charity
as an end./

" Two kinds of governments are based on two diametrically opposite
principles. One is the exploitation of all for the advantage of one :
that is the monarchy of Nero, which I detest. The other is the
sacrifice of one for the benefit of all : that is the monarchy of St. Louis,
which 1 revere and love. One is the exploitation of all for the benefit
of a faction : that is the Republic of the Terror, which I utterly
condemn. The other is the sacrifice of each for the advantage of
all : that is the Christian republic of the primitive Church of
Jerusalem. It is also perhaps that of the end of all time, the last and
the highest state to which humanity can aspire."/

Young Ozanam continued : " Every form of government seems good
in that it represents the divine principle of authority : it is in that
sense that I understand the omnis potestas a Deo of St. Paul. But I
do hold that with power there must also be room for the sacred

THE SOCIAL QUESTION 257

principle of liberty. This must be upheld vigorously, and a courageous
voice must be heard warning any power that would exploit, instead
of serving it."

" Opposition is useful and desirable, not insurrection. Obedience
should be active, resistance passive ; the Prisons of Silvo Pellico and
not the Paroles d'un Croyant."

Many of those political aphorisms are no doubt characteristic of a
young man, but certainly not of a revolutionary.

Beside the question of the form of Government there was another W
which was more closely bound up with religion. Ozanam had written
as follows : " The question which is agitating the world to-day is neither
one of the form of governemnt nor of persons ; it is a social question.
It is a struggle between those who have nothing and those who have
too much ; it is the violent clash of opulence and poverty, which is
shaking the ground under our feet. Our duty as Christians is to throw
ourselves between those two camps, in order to help to accomplish
through Charity what Justice alone cannot do." That is exactly
what he desired to do more than ever in February, 1848. /

On the day of the bloody insurrection much honour was reflected on
the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, by the brave action of one of its
members. His name, though worthy to go down to history, remains
hidden in the obscurity so dear to the spirit of the Society. L'Ami
de la Religion reports as follows on the 29th February, 1848 : " On
Thursday last, 24th inst., at the moment when the people had just
invaded the Tuileries and were engaged in flinging the furniture
and tapestry through the windows, a young man, a member of a
Conference of St. Vincent de Paul, hastened to the Chapel, fearing
lest it should be despoiled, and desirous of preventing such profanation.
The Chapel, where Mass had been said that morning, had been already
invaded ; vestments were scattered about the sacristy, but the altar
had not been touched. The religious youth begged some National
guards to help him to carry away the sacred vessels and the crucifix.
They replied that they were of one mind with him, but they thought
it necessary that they should have with them a cadet from the Poly
technic. Two cadets came forward. They took the sacred vessels
and the crucifix, and left by the Court of the Tuileries and the Car
rousel for the Church of St. Roch."

" In the court-yard cries were raised against the men carrying off
those precious treasures. Then he who was bearing the crucifix,

258 FREDERICK OZANAM

raised it aloft saying : "Do you wish to be regenerated ? Well !
remember, that can only come through Christ." " Yes, yes," replied
many voices, " He is the Master of us all." Heads were uncovered
to the shout of " Christ for ever." The crucifix and a chalice without
the paten were borne, so to speak, in procession to St. Roch's, where
they were received by the Cure. /

" This group of people first asked the priest's blessing. He said a
few words to them which were received with emotion and respect.
" We love God," they cried, " we wish for religion and desire to see
it honoured. Long live Liberty ! Long live the religion of Pius IX."
Before withdrawing they knelt a second time to receive the Cure's
blessing;.*

The February Revolution assumed disproportionate dimensions in
Ozanam's eyes. Did he not write as follows ? : — " In the events which
are now taking place in Rome, in Paris, and in Vienna, do we not hear
a voice calling : Ecce facio ceolos novos et terram novam. Since the
fall of the Roman Empire the world has not seen a revolution like
unto this. I still believe, as I did, in the invasion of the barbarians ;
but of barbarians such as the Franks of Clovis. I believe in the
emancipation of down-trodden nationalists, and I admire more than
ever the mission of Pius IX., which is so opportune for Italy and for the
world. I do not hide from myself the dangers of the times nor the
hardness of hearts ; I expect to see much hardship, disorder and
pillage. I believe even that we may be crushed, but it will be under
the Juggernaut of Christianity."

Ozanam had not been wanting in his duty in donning the uniform
of the National Guard, and taking his place in the post of danger in
common with all good citizens. But that was not really his place.
M. Foisset, and many others, cherished the hope of seeing him become
In Parliament one of the leaders of the new order of things. Ozanam
replied in the following modest terms on the 22nd March, 1848 :
" You are quite wrong, my dear friend, in thinking that I am one of
the men of the moment. I have never been so keenly conscious of

*It was to that event that Pere Lacordaire alluded in his Conference on the
27th February when he said : " Thanks be to God, we believe in Him. If I
doubted our faith, the very gates of this Cathedral would open of themselves
and the people would only need one glance to confound me. For, in the
very moment of their intoxication with victory, did they not with their own
hands bear before them the image of the Son of God made Man, as if hoping to
associate Him with their triumph ?" (applause).

A CANDIDATE FOR LYONS 259

my weakness and my ineffectiveness. I am less qualified than almost
any other, to deal with those questions which are agitating men's
minds ! I mean questions of labour, wages, commerce, administra
tion, which are more important than any political controversy

I am not a man of action, nor am I suited for Parliament or for the
platform. If I can do anything however small, it is in my University
chair or perhaps in the seclusion of my library, in extracting from
Philosophy and from History thoughts which I can put before young
men, before troubled and vacillating minds, in order to steady, to
encourage, to rally them together, in the confusion of the present and
the terrible uncertainty of the future."

Ozanam's name appeared on many lists of proposed candidates.
He declined the honour. He was convinced that, at the moment,
Catholics were not numerous enough to win out alone. He wrote as
follows : " The best course for us to adopt is to support Republican / ;
candidates, who share our faith and who will give satisfactory
guarantees for our liberty."

Ozanam was in the act of closing that letter when a most insistent
appeal reached him from a Catholic committee in Lyons, to allow his
name to go forward as Deputy for that city. A division of parties
offered a good chance of getting a sufficient number of votes to return
him. Taking up again his letter to Foisset he submits this case to
his judgment : "In addition to the aforesaid objections I am not
robust enough to face the storms of the National Assembly. My
style of speaking does not suit the Chamber. My friends here are
divided. Several advise me to attend the next Assembly. What is
your opinion ? If you reply by return your letter can reach me before
I write to Lyons, as I shall not write until Saturday. I am seriously
perplexed as to what to do."

We have not M. Foisset's reply. But Ozanam yielded and allowed
his name to go forward. It was at the eleventh hour, barely four days
before the closing of the nominations. He had not even time to ad
dress his constituents in Lyons. He wrote to his brother, the priest :
" My first inclination was to refuse a trust, which is ill-suited to my
habits and studies. However, having considered the matter in the
presence of God, and taken counsel with those who have claims on my
conscience and my affection, having weighed together the advice
of my family and of my friends, I have decided to make the sacrifice.
I could not refuse it without failing in honour, in patriotism, and in

260 FREDERICK OZANAM

Christian devotion. I am to stand for Lyons. I hope that I shall
get only an average number of votes, and that Providence may spare
me the dangerous distinction of being a representative of the people.
But if that be my destiny, I hope that I shall get sufficient courage to
fulfil the designs of Providence. I know the risk I am running ; at
the worst it is that of life. God has made life very hard for us during
the last two months in order to teach us not to cling to it more than
is good for our amendment and salvation. As to fortune, it would be
very selfish to consider that at a time when it is a question of saving
or losing France."

" That is then, my dear brother, yet another reason for praying
very specially for me. Please offer up your Easter Mass, if it is free,
for that intention, as it will be on that day that my fate will issue from
the ballot box."

The lateness of the nomination and the absence of the candidate
did not prevent 16,000 electors from voting for him. It was not a
sufficient number for election. Ozanam wrote to the same brother,
more than consoled in advance for his defeat : " It is fairly clear, from
the number of votes cast for me, that, if I had been nominated sooner,
and if I had been able to canvass personally, I should have succeeded.
But God, no doubt, wished that I should be spared that dreadful
responsibility. He preferred to send me back to research work for
which I have a taste."

Ozanam, now personally disinterested, worked and actively can
vassed the young men on behalf of the candidatures of M. de Melun,
of M. Thayer, and especially of Pere Lacordaire : " The Reverend
Father preserves his own admirable serenity," he wrote. " I have
never seen him more indifferent, more inclined to serve God's interests,
less disposed to trouble himself with human passions. The Archbishop
of Paris has given striking testimony of his confidence by making him
Vicar General of the Arch-Diocese."

As a representative of the people in the Chamber, Ozanam would
have been able to bring forward a law regulating economic and
charitable institutions. There remained open to him as a citizen
the way of petition. Behold him drawing up an appeal for Sunday
Rest. " It will be handed round and posted on the walls : it may be
the means of inducing the work-people to petition for it." He sum
moned " a meeting of Professors to consider the foundation of extension
lectures and night schools for those poor people. The Carmelites will

THE WORKING CLASSES 261

help, and the Archbishop will give a hall." He wrote to his brother
on the I5th March : " My dear brother, you know how happy I am to
share our predilections for the working classes, who are poor and
are strangers to the refinement and the good taste of those who are
called the better classes. If more Catholics, and above all, more
clergy had concerned themselves with the working classes for the
last ten years, we should feel more certain of the future. All our
hopes rest on the very little which has been done for them here in
Paris/'

Ozanam recommended that same brother, who was then engaged
in giving a Mission in Lille, to " interest himself now more than ever
in servants as well as in masters, in the working classes as well as in
the employers. Therein lies the only path of salvation for the future
Church of France. Priests must give up their bourgeois parishes and
their little chosen circle, lost in the midst of a population whom they
do not know. They must concern themselves not merely with the
poverty-stricken, but with the working classes who do not need alms.
These will be won by special sermons, by charitable associations, and
by sympathy, which will touch them more than is generally believed."
He writes to the same brother on the selections for the North as
follows : " Instead of forming an alliance with the beaten middle
classes, it would have been better to have sided with the people, who
are the true ally of the Church. They are poor as she is, devoted as she
is, and blessed as she is with the benediction of the Saviour. I have
just heard of an excellent selection at Valenciennes, my friend Wallon,
acting at present for Professor Guizot in the Faculty. He is a sincere
Republican and a sound Catholic, a member of a Conference of St.
Vincent de Paul, and a very zealous worker for the poor."

When Ozanam resumed his lectures in the Sorbonne immediately
after February, he had only to appear before his students such as he
had always been: " In appearing again before you after the great
events which have taken place, I am happy to be able to say that,
looking back over six years of lectures, I do not recollect one word
which I shall have to unsay to-day. You have always known me to be
passionately in favour of liberty, in favour of the legitimate triumphs
of the people, in favour of reforms which elevate, and in favour of
those dogmas of equality and fraternity which are but the introduction
of the Gospel into the temporal domain. I return to our University
forthwith to give henceforward, as far as in me lies, an example of

262 FREDERICK OZANAM

confidence in good order, which will be better upheld by the unity of
citizens, than by the display of legal fictions."

It was thus that he and others founded in France the Parti de la
confiance, which claimed a majority at the moment. Ozanam wrote :
"The first duty for Catholics is not to fear themselves ; the second,
not to frighten others. It is rather to reassure those who are
uneasy at the political and financial crisis through which we are pass
ing, by pointing out that Providence is at hand. Let us not be too
solicitous for the morrow, 'What shall we eat and wherewith shall
we be clothed?' Be brave, seek first the justice of God, the good
of the nation and all else will be added thereunto."

Such was his point of view on the I2th April, when he informed M.
Foisset that he and some friends wished to found a new journal for
new times and new needs. " That is the part which I shall play in
political life, from which no one can stand aloof. It will be narrowed
down to the little which I shall do for the The New Era, which will
appear without fail on the I5th April next." On that date 'Ozanam
was about to enter, all unknowingly, a real battlefield.

263

CHAPTER XXI.
THE JUNE INSURRECTION.
The New Era.-(L*ERE NOUVELLE).— THE DAYS OF BLOOD. — ARCHBISHOP

AFFRE.

1848.

P&re Lacordaire relates in his Memoirs that his mind was in a state
of great perplexity after the February Revolution. He was divided
between a Limited Monarchy — which he had always preferred —
and a Republic which he did not believe would be stable in France,
but which in fact now existed. He asked himself, whether it would
not be wiser to support it openly in the interest of institutions, the non
existence of which had brought about the ruin of two thrones and two
dynasties.

" Now," he writes, " at the very moment that I was thus deliberat
ing, the Abbe Maret and Frederick Ozanam knocked at my door. They
came to inform me that uneasiness and uncertainty reigned in the
minds of Catholics, that such confusion and hesitancy would easily
throw the new regime into hostility, and snatch from us the chances
of gaining that liberty which the previous government had persistently
refused : ' The Republic/ they added, ' is well disposed in our favour.
We cannot reproach it with any of the acts of irreligion and barbarity
which signalised the Revolution of 1830. It believes and hopes in
us. Are we to disappoint it ? What other course can we adopt ?
To what other party can we attach ourselves ? What will there be
before us but ruin ? What is a Republic if it be not the natural
government of society, when its sheet-anchor and its traditions have
been lost?'"

" My two visitors went much further than I. While I saw in the
Republic but a necessity of the moment, which it would be necessary
to accept in all sincerity until men's minds had been naturally

264 FREDERICK OZANAM

diverted into a new channel, they had loftier and more general views
upon the democratic future of European society. That created such
a gap between us that co-operation under a common standard seemed
impossible. But danger was imminent . . . Implored to decide by
those voices of friends, I yielded to the tyranny of events ; and although
it was repugnant to me to become a journalist, I declared openly on
the side of those who offered me a flag — in which religion, Republic,
and liberty were interwoven "

The prospectus of the The New Era appeared on the 1st March. It
declared that the journal would not belong to any party, that it would
hold itself independent of all, in order to be in a position to speak the
truth to all with impartiality, but always with moderation and charity.

On the day following the appearance of the journal, the i6th April,
the editor received a note from His Grace the Archbishop of Paris,
Monsignor Affre, in which he did more than merely give encouragement ;
he made the journal almost his own, guaranteed its prudence, and
congratulated it on performing a great civic and religious duty. He
wrote as follows : " The personal knowledge which I have of the
principles of the founders of your paper, constrains me forthwith to
give you a measure of support which I have withheld from papers
published during the previous government. Not only am I com
pletely re- assured against the danger of any attempt to resuscitate
the Avenir, but I know that you will wage war against all that was
reprehensible in its theories. Catholics will not, I am sure, be slow
to recognise this. But what they will appreciate above all in your
paper is the honesty, frankness, and generosity which, taking what
is best from all sides, has one aim and one aim only, the salvation of
religion and of fatherland."

" What will please them and will win new readers for you is the
simple devotion which, instead of calculating the chances of an un
certain future, discharges with steadiness and with intelligence the
duty of the present ; a devotion which threats will not deter, which
grows in intensity with danger, which is willing to sacrifice rest, fortune
and glory itself, if need be, for the good of the country. We all count
upon you for this spirit, for it is Faith which sustains and illumines
it, because it sees the all-powerful intervention of God in those mighty
revolutions which change the face of the earth."

" As you have noticed, that intervention has never been so clearly
demonstrated as in the new political state of France. Let us trust

REPUDIATION OF DIVORCE 265

in God rather than in ourselves. We shall find true courage in that
sentiment. Yours very sincerely, Denis, Archbishop of Paris."

Thus conscious of being on the right path and henceforward leaning
on the arm of his Archbishop, Ozanam threw himself into this new work
with all his strength, as he did into every work which was marked out
for him by the will of God.

Only three weeks later, on the 7th May, he was able to inform his
brother that he was corresponding through his journal with at least
600 priests. They were the first subscribers to The New Era. He adds
" That work, and my course of lectures, which I have resumed, use up
all my strength, which is not as robust as I should wish, if I am to
judge by the extreme weakness which my military exploits in the
National Guard caused me." Mounting guard at the gates of the
Legislative Assembly had almost worn him out with fatigue and heat.
" I had to protect the place as I could not enlighten it."

One of his first serious contributions to The New Era was a series
of articles dealing with a Bill to establish Divorce, which a Minister
of Justice, Cremieux, a Jew, had introduced in the Assembly, and
which constituted an attack on the family and society.

The Press of the day does not give any adequate idea whatever
of the amount and accuracy of knowledge displayed in that thesis,
which pulsated with eloquence and with the emotion caused by a
great and imminent danger. M. Cremieux had brought forward the
Bill in the name of liberalism and democracy. Ozanam repudiates
" that time-worn liberalism, which was always distinguished by hatred
for religion rather than by love of liberty, and which was bent upon
the ruin of noble institutions, even as the Philosophy of the iSth cen
tury was bent upon the destruction of belief . . ."

He repudiates it in the name of the young Republic : " The recent
Revolution burst forth against the corruption of a society which had
not even the courage to hate evil. It can only achieve its aim by the
creation of a better state of society, which will be built up by work,
by self-denial, by all that ordinarily develops conscience and character.
Such a society is poor and hardworking, and needs only to be chaste
to have the foundations of national strength. It must have severe
laws, it must grow on manly habits to obtain what Providence has
promised. Providence has certainly not allowed such great events
to happen to produce a common-place result."

There were still more terrible things to happen in those days. The

266 FREDERICK OZANAM

bloody days of the 23rd, 24th and 25th June, 1848, were at hand.
Ozanam was to be engaged in the laborious duties of a National Guard,
which tried his physical strength. God was about to call on His
soldier for another service in the cause of peace and sublime devotion.
Ozanam was not called upon to fire. He wrote to his brother
immediately after those days of terror : " My company was stationed
nearly all the time at the corner of the Rue Garanciere and the Rue
Palatine, later, at the corner of the Rue Madame and the Rue de
Fleurus. There were excursions and alarms, occasional shots close
by, and bad patrols on the boulevards. But thank God, we did not
fire a cartridge."

He was ready for every emergency : " My conscience was easy,
and I should not have recoiled from any danger. But I am free to
admit that it is a terrible moment when a man bids, what he believes
to be, his last farewell to his wife and child."

But what then had been what I have called the sublime idea of the
soldier of God ? I am taking the account from the historian of La
seconde Republique : "Ozanam was on active service with M. Cornudet
and M. Bailly on Sunday, 25th June, at a military post at the Rue
Madame ; they were discussing sinister rumours which pointed to the
prolongation of the struggle. The idea of inviting His Grace the
Archbishop to intervene, suddenly occurred to their troubled minds.
It seemed to them that it would be a great triumph for the Church,
if His Grace could mediate between the parties to this terrible Civil
War. They went at once to talk it over with the Abbe Buquet, Vicar-
General. He approved of their project and have them a letter in a
large envelope which would procure a safe conduct for them through
the barricades to the Archbishop.

" His Grace, Dr. Afire, received them as graciously as usual, and
after having heard their project said, with perfect simplicity : ' I
have been obsessed with that idea since yesterday, but how can I
bring it about ? How can I reach the insurgents ? Would General
Cavaignac permit such a step to be taken ? Where can he be found ? "

" In answer to all his objections the visitors assured him that he
would be received on all sides with veneration : ' You are right,' he
said with an air of submission. ' Very well then, I shall go. I shall
put on my cassock so as not to attract attention and you will point
out the way to me.'

'*As he was about to get ready, a priest entered and related to

DEATH OF THE ARCHBISHOP 267

him in terror some awful incidents of the insurrection, which he had
witnessed a few moments previously. His Grace heard him with
emotion and continued his preparations."

" He was ready in a few minutes. The young men insisted res
pectfully that he should put on his purple soutane and wear his pec
toral cross : ' I shall do as you wish/ he said with the same simplicity.
Before setting out for the scene of the struggle, he went first with them
to the Provost-Marshal to obtain permission."

"All cars were stopped and they had to walk. It would be impossible
to do justice to the veneration and enthusiasm with which His Grace
was received. It was a triumphant march from the Ile-St. -Louis
to the National Assembly. The troops, the National Guard, the mov
able columns, stood to arms and gave a general salute. Men raised
their hats and women and children bowed. It was a most impressive
sight."

"General Cavaignac received the Archbishop with respect and ad
miration. The General appreciated heroism if not Christianity. He
first represented to him the danger he was about to run. He informed
him that General Brea, sent forward to parley, had been taken a prisoner
by the insurgents. He begged him not to expose himself to such
danger. But His Grace's resolution was unshakeable, and the by
standers still remember the simplicity with which he said, ' I shall

go.'

" The General praised his courage. He had drawn up with M. Senard
a few hours before a proclamation, calling on workmen to lay down
arms and promising a full indemnity. He placed a copy in the Arch
bishop's hands with the intention of facilitating his undertaking."

"The Archbishop returned to his house, took a repast, and made
his confession as if going to death. He then took the road to the
insurgent quarters. M. Ozanam, M. Cornudet and M. Bailly begged
for the honour of accompanying him. Solicitous that none should
be exposed to danger for his sake, he refused, saying that their uniform
of the National Guard would make his mission more difficult by pre
senting the appearance of an escort. He would go with his two priests
and his servant-man. They left him, in obedience, but in grief."

We shall abridge the rest of the account, which does not directly
concern us here.

"It is impossible to describe the emotion which prevailed at the
sight of the Archbishop on foot, wending his way to the Place de la

268 FREDERICK OZANAM

Bastille. The guards presented their arms to be blessed : officers
begged him not to go to his death : thinking that he was going to the
ambulances, women brought him linen and lint for the wounded.
He replied to those who emphasized his danger, ' My life is a little
thing.' Moving forward, he quoted for his Vicar-Generals, Very Rev.
Peres Jacquemet and Ravinet the words of the Gospel : ' The good
shepherd giveth his life for his flock !' His countenance seemed
illumined ! "

"At the Place de 1' Arsenal he stopped for a few brief moments to
chat with and bless the poor wounded soldiers. It was eight o'clock
in the evening and the fight was being waged savagely. When he
had arrived at the Place de la Bastille, the prelate spoke to the colonel
in command and asked to have the 'Cease Fire ' sounded : ' I shall
go forward alone/ he said, ' to those unfortunate men who have been
misled.' The soldiers' fire ceased, that of the insurgents first slackened
then ceased. The Archbishop moved out into the Square. A young
member of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, named Brechemin,
went in advance. He raised his white handkerchief high on the branch
of a tree, and thus reached the first barricade. Not awaiting the
return of the young man, the heroic prelate passed through a shop
at the corner of the Faubourg St. Antoine, which had a door opening
on each street, and thus reached the large barricade which closed up
that area. A number of insurgents came down on the Square, several
soldiers closed in also, eager to fraternise. The Archbishop, reading
from the promise of pardon, which he held in his hand, was already
beginning to move their hearts to reconciliation, when a single shot
went off. A frightful discharge followed immediately. The Archbishop
fell mortally wounded into a workman's arms, saying : 'Friend, I am
wounded.' The insurgents themselves, startled at the fall of that great
victim, carried him to the house of the Cure of Quinze-Vingts. His
Grace the Archbishop died the next day, his last words being, ' May
my blood be the last to be shed.' '

The event, which had taken place early in the night, was not generally
known in the city until the following morning, owing to the state of
general disorder. The news was received universally with feelings
of horror and grief. Ozanam and his two friends, M. Cornudet and
M. Bailly felt consternation at the event, mingled at first with bitter
remorse. But when they recalled to mind that the inspiration of
self-sacrifice had come to the Archbishop before their arrival, and that

DEATH OF M. SOULACROIX 269

he would probably have carried it out even if they had not come :
that one fruit of the sacrifice had been the sudden end of the insurrec
tion, and that his blood had been the last shed : and, lastly, when they
witnessed the honour which redounded not only to the Archbishop,
but to the clergy and the whole Church : and, above all, the pardon
and the favours which the voluntary self-sacrifice of the Shepherd
was to bring down on the entire flock, those noble counsellors could
well satisfy themselves, that they had been, in that matter, but the
unconscious instruments of a merciful Providence.

That is, indeed, the sentiment which shines through the following
few lines, written by Ozanam on the 3rd July : " It was not a riot
but a civil war which was waged, the most difficult to end of all wars,
for, smouldering, it waits for an opportunity to burst out again. I
have no hope save in God and in the merits of the holy Archbishop.
By a chain of circumstances which it would take too long to explain,
I had the honour of accompanying him when he walked through the
streets to the quarters of General Cavaignac, amid the acclamations
of the multitude. About himself Ozanam says nothing more*

He wrote in another letter : " What a happy thing it is at such
moments to have dear ones out of Paris." At the moment when
popular agitation began, Ozanam had at once arranged to send away
his wife and child, whom he installed for the summer months at
Bellevue near Meudon. He had had at the same time his father-
in-law carried away to the country very ill. Since his son's death he
had been a prey to melancholy, on which the terror of these bloody
days was super-imposed. He died from a violent attack on the 24th
July, 1848.

Ozanam mourned for him, not without religious consolation : ' My
excellent and beloved father-in-law," he wrote " died in our arms.
He had all the consolations of a Christian, well-spent life and of a happy
death . M. Soulacroix lived a good Christian life. He bore

his sufferings in a still more Christian manner, and he departed this
life with sentiments of faith, hope and charity, and a desire for Heaven,

*This is according to the account given by Ozanam's brother, ch XVIII,
p 393— by Pere Lacordaire in his funeral notice, VIII, p. 253— and in the notes
to Ozanam's letters, p. 237— in the Histone de la seconds Rfpublique by M. Pierre
de la Gorce. All are agreed in attributing to Ozanam and his companions the iaea
of approaching the Archbishop. On the other hand a letter of M. Cornudet
to his sister attributes it in the first instance to the Abbe Buquet, as appears
in the Bulletin of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, May 1894.

270 FREDERICK OZANAM

which inspires perfect confidence that we shall see him there if we are
worthy to follow him. But how hard it is in times of difficulty to
be deprived of such a tender father, and of a man of such counsel and
courage."

If he described himself as afflicted by domestic grief, he was over
whelmed by the causes for national mourning ; but he was still un
dismayed. He wrote on the 3ist July to Count Champagny : "Alas !
my dear sir, you ask me for my views on the present situation. We
are under the judgment of God. In the dark cloud of grief, under
which we are living, I can no longer see whither we are being led,
unless that Providence is leading us whither He wills. When one
witnesses generals wounded and dead, the flower of the African army
gone, the heroic Archbishop killed, and Chateaubriand no more,
who, in a way, represented ancient France, it seems to me as if our
very fatherland were crumbling away. It appears to be disappearing
and bearing with it all that we held dear : liberty itself, which now
seems possible only in a state of siege : the growing popularity
of Catholicism, compromised by the present difficulties of Pius IX.
But I have not at any time concealed from myself the difficulties and
dangers of the situation. I have always believed in the invasion of
the barbarians. I believe in it now more than ever. I think that it
will be slow and sanguinary, but that it must sooner or later give way
before the Christian Law. It will then regenerate the world. I am
certain that we shall witness the horrors of the struggle, I am not so
certain that our children will see its close."

Then comes the sublime word, the sublimity of faith which moves
mountains :—" Let us pray; we must not believe that the end of
France has come. Because at this moment, the end of France would
be the end of the world. Can it possibly be believed that the temporal
destiny of Christianity has run its course and that God has no further
use for this world but to iudge it ? That is what I shall never say.
Even were all modern society annihilated, I should be still assured
that God, in His omnipotence, could with greater ease, raise up a new
state of society, than that He could confine the effects of the Precious
Blood of His Son to the little good, which the last eighteen hundred
centuries have produced."

Now was the time for Ozanam to work harder than ever, mingling
with the poor people to comfort them in their troubles and enlighten
them in their errors. The Society of St. Vincent de Paul on one side,

TRIBUTE TO THE SOCIETY 271

and The New Era on another, were to co-operate in the double
apostolate of corporal and spiritual aid, for the poverty-stricken as
well as for the ruling classes in Paris and in France.

The consequences of the June insurrection threw France, and more
particularly Paris, into a deplorable condition of suffering and destitu
tion. The immediate shutting down of the national workshops left
267,000 workmen in the Capital out of work. Fear paralysed in
dustry and commerce. The manufacturing houses were closed and
orders countermanded. Capitalists were in hiding, the landed
proprietors had fled Paris, and were not in any hurry to return : public
funds were quoted at ridiculous prices : the resources of charity had
been exhausted by the ruin or the absence of those who provided them.
Thus societies and houses of charity were forced to turn away from
their doors, their poor, their children, and their sick clients. What
was going to become of the multitude without work, without credit,
without food, and without hope ?

Ozanam was consumed with pity at the spectacle : " Wearied of
the controversies which are agitating Paris, I am stricken with sorrow
at the spectacle of the misery which is desolating it," he wrote to M.
Foisset. " The Society of St. Vincent de Paul has great responsibili
ties cast upon it. Perhaps God has allowed it to progress so rapidly,
in order to enable it to perform the work which He was getting ready
for it. It is good to see at close quarters, the poor men, unarmed,
among their wives and children, whom we have formerly seen too
often in the clubs and at the barricades. It will then be seen with
astonishment, how much Christianity, and consequently how much
hope, there is in the people. Ah ! if we only had saints ! But how
can we doubt that God has them in reserve for an age to which He
gave Pius IX and the Archbishop of Paris ?"

The Society of St. Vincent de Paul had just received a high tribute
of confidence from the Government. Grants had been voted by the
National Assembly for the benefit of the poor in the Department of
the Seine, and its distribution in the homes was entrusted, in part,
to the Conferences in regular contact with those poor. Several Mayors
in Paris had acted similarly, notably Dr. Trelat, Physician to the
Asylum and Mayor of the Xllth Ward. The celebrated doctor was
not at all too religious, but he stated from actual knowledge, that such
a responsible matter could not be entrusted to more reliable or more
experienced hands.

272 FREDERICK OZANAM

It was with those conditions prevailing that the Quarterly General
Meeting of the Society was held on the 2nd August in a hall attached
to St. Sulpice Church. The moment was solemn. M. Adolphe
Baudon, who had succeeded the venerable M. Gossin as President-
General on the I4th February, had just had his leg fractured at the
barricade of the Petit- Pont de la Cite. Ozanam, as Vice-President, took
his place. At his right sat the chairman of the meeting, the Abbe
Fournier, future Bishop of Nantes, Member of the National Assembly.
At his left was M. Augustin Cochin, Secretary-General. Ozanam began
by assuring the meeting that their beloved and courageous President
would not be lost to them : " He will not go from us as do the glorious
dead and wounded, who depart one after another, seeming to bear
our fatherland away with them."

He mentioned the names of some of the members who perished
during those sad days : M. Lecoq, a member of the Conference of St.
Paul-St. Louis, a brilliant mining engineer and one of the most promis
ing students of the Polythecnic : M. Charre, President of the Conference
in Montmartre : " He was only twenty- two years of age : a young
Law student crowned with success, a naturalist, an archaeologist,
an only son, rich, intelligent, to whom all honour and happiness was
beckoning. He was hit righting by his father's side. After ten hours
of agony he breathed his soul to God, Who will have taken into account
the sacrifice of his youth, the mourning of his brothers in the Society,
and the tears of the poor."

The memory of His Grace, Archbishop Affre, received mournful
tribute in his address : " He was a father to our growing Society.
He had recently handed over a large sum of money to it, for the benefit
and the instruction of young migratory workmen in Paris. Thus
the good of the people occupied all his thoughts up to the time when
he was to die for the safety of the people. God permitted, in that sup
reme moment, that the humble Society of St. Vincent de Paul should
be represented near the Archbishop by one of its members bearing a
flag of truce. That is a domestic tribute and a family tradition which
we wish to be mentioned in the account of that death which history
will record with honour. My dear Brothers, many among you will
remember the day when a preacher, whom we all love, cried out in
Notre Dame in the presence of the Abbe Affre, then Vicar-General of the
diocese : ' My God, give us saints, it is too long since we have seen

IRELAND AND FRANCE 273

any.' God is generous, my dear Brothers, you asked for saints and
He has given you martyrs."

When the tribute has been paid to the dead, duty to the living
must be attended to. Ozanam advises the distributors of State aid
to be messengers of peace to the insurgents. Their task as mediators
between the conqueror and the vanquished should not be limited
to giving charity ; they should strive to rehabilitate charity in the eyes
of those poor, duped, embittered workmen, by showing them that it
was prompt, compassionate, merciful, forgetful of the past : " Sons
of St. Vincent de Paul, let us learn of Him to forget ourselves, to
devote ourselves to the service of God and the good of men. Let
us learn of Him that holy preference which shows most love to those
who suffer most."

Ozanam next thanked private and foreign contributors. The pre
vious year, Ozanam had carried on a propaganda, and with what
fervour ! for Ireland, which was then decimated with famine and
typhus. One hundred and fifty thousand francs had been collected
and forwarded to the Council in Dublin. To-day, it was Ireland's
turn, who, mindful of Paris and its trials, begged of her to accept the
balance of 50,000 francs for her wounded and her unemployed workmen.
Ozanam was full of admiration for the offer and insisted that it
should be accepted : "It was a rare example of that fraternity of
charity which knows no distinction of nationality in the sight of God."

M. Augustin Cochin spoke after Ozanam and also delivered a beau
tiful address, animated with the same zeal. His report on the Society
stated that 69 Conferences had been founded in 1847, bringing their
total number of 363 (334 Conferences, 29 Councils) on the ist January,
1848, to 393 to date (the August meeting). Of that number England
had 17, Holland 16, Canada u. The enthusiasm of M. Cochin burst
forth : " There is scarce a day in the year, or an hour in the day, on
which men are not gathered together at some spot in the Christian
world, under the patronage of St. Vincent de Paul, to perform works
for the good of man and the glory of God, good works in which they
have one prayer, one faith, and one Rule. No frontiers divide them,
the horizon broadens daily, and each day sees new constellations
of charity appear in the Vincentian firmament."

M. Baudon's wound necessitated a long absence, and an equally long
period of vice-presidency for Ozanam. During the close of that ter
rible year he was the effective acting-President of the Society. He

s

274 FREDERICK OZANAM

congratulated it on the fact that it had survived the troubles and
was intact. He encouraged it to redoubled energy for that year :
"Do we not owe something to Providence, my dear Brothers, who
has preserved us when so many others have perished ? Is it enough
to continue to do the little which we have been accustomed to do?
When the hardships of the time are inventing new forms of suffering,
can we rest satisfied with old remedies ?"

What did he mean ? More active recruitment for the Conferences ;
a more ardent search for the unfortunate poor who were in hiding,
for those who were ashamed to beg, hard-working men who had been
accustomed to live by their work and whom a long enforced idleness
had reduced to penury.

He asked himself in the month of September : " What will the
opening year be like for France ? I do not know, but I know that
it will be for our Society one of those periods in the campaign,
which cause most fatigue but which count double. Go to the unhappy
poor with your offering, no matter how small it may be. If we had
but the widow's mite to offer, the poor will at least have had the
consolation of having clasped the hand of a friend, of having heard
a Christian point of view, of having been taught to honour their
poverty as the Saviour's crown of thorns."

The year's campaign opened, at the close of 1848, with an epidemic
of cholera. Uneasy for the safety of his wife and child, Ozanam placed
them in Versailles. On the 22nd April, 1849, he called together and
organised, with his colleagues on the Council, a band of forty picked
men to carry temporal and spiritual aid to the victims of cholera,
whom special reasons prevented from being taken to hospital. By
the time of the next Quarterly General Meeting of the Society, on the
igth July, the first forty had become one hundred and twelve. " Surely
it was a small number," he said, " to go to the aid of a decimated people,
with an administration thrown altogether out of gear, and science
completely beaten. But those one hundred and twelve picked men
did not wait to contrast their insignificance with the greatness of the
danger and of the need. Divided into nine sections amongst the
most severely visited quarters, they placed their services at the
disposal of the Sisters of Charity and of the medical ambulances.
Upwards of two thousand sick received their ministrations in the
space of two months. Three-fourths of those recovered ; the rest died
a happy death fortified with the rights of the Church."

ST. VINCENT DE PAUL AND RICHELIEU 275

Ozanam regretted that he could not report in detail the horror
and desolation of the time : " Entire streets depopulated in a few
nights, but pardon and grace harvesting all the time with full hands :
all the poor people wishing to die in the priest's arms : then the unheard
of homage, the shouts of joy, the flowers scattered beneath the feet
of the new Archbishop, His Grace Dr. Sibour, as he made his pilgrimage
to the tomb of St. Genevieve. Then again, the gratitude of families,
the emotion of the crowd, who were astonished and amazed that
young men should, for the glory of Jesus Christ, leave their homes to
enter the stricken faubourg, to nurse the sick and bury the dead/'

" His Grace the Archbishop has officially undertaken the adoption
of orphans. The Society of St. Vincent de Paul will do its part. In
how many other centres in the provinces has not the same been done ?
Thus Faith is coming back in the footsteps of Charity, and Religion,
now knocking at doors which had been long closed to it, will bring
in with it peace, reconciliation and the promise of Eternity."

A contrast of the effects of political action and charitable work
which was made at the same Quarterly General Meeting, suggested
the names of Richelieu and of St. Vincent de Paul, living near one
another, amid the evils of the Thirty Years' War and the destruction of
political factions. Ozanam exclaimed in beautiful language : " The
great Minister certainly played a glorious part, but who could, and
who would if he could, continue it to-day ? Richelieu was but a man
of one country, of one period, of a few years. St. Vincent de Paul is,
on the other hand, for all lands and for all time. His name is cele
brated wherever the sun illumines the Crucifix on a church-tower.
His spirit visits the hospitals and schools of our faubourgs in the
persons of his Sisters, as well as the Missions of Lebanon, China and
Texas, which are manned with his sons. His work never grows old :
who does not wish to-day to continue it? If we have courage and
faith, gentlemen, what will keep us back ?

276

CHAPTER XXII.

<r- THE NEW ERA."

"TO GOOD PEOPLE/' — DESTITUTION, CAUSES AND REMEDIES. — THE
REPUBLIC. — REACTION AND DIVISION. — THE END OF The New Era.

1848-49.

While the Society of St. Vincent de Paul was going to the poor to
comfort them in their misery, The New Era devoted itself to enlisting
the sympathies of the charitable public. One of Ozanam's letters,
dated the 3rd July, a week after the insurrection, runs as follows :
' The New Era claims the greatest part of whatever time is left me
from my examinations. I have contributed five articles in ten days.
Those articles were snapped up as soon as they appeared in print.
We have," he said, " the satisfaction of doing some good, for as many
as eight thousand copies a day have been sold in the streets of Paris."

These articles were received with quite unexpected popularity in
the faubourgs. They were directed to the disarmed insurgents,
" speaking to them without patronising them, without irritating
them, but teaching them to estimate at their proper value those who
had duped them. Well-to-do people praised the firmness of our words
and did us the honour of attributing to us a sympathetic heart, and a
sincere passion for the interests of the people."

It was to those good people themselves, and to all good citizens
that Ozanam appealed some months later " to be no longer silent about
truths which have ceased to be a source of danger." He addresses
them in more stirring terms than usual " without fearing that my
appeal will be misused by wicked men or that it will furnish ammuni
tion for guns at the barricades. "-

Thus, on the 24th September, the following is to be read in a letter
to M. Foisset : " I have allowed my feelings full expression in an article in
The New Era, which you may have read, entitled : To Good People."
It is indeed his patriotic and Christian heart, which has dictated the

POVERTY, CAUSES AND REMEDY 277

twenty-five pages which one would wish to produce in extenso. There
is here no aiming at literary effect, no academic controversy ; only
fundamental facts stated in the simplest, and consequently in the
most eloquent and most beautiful, language. Ozanam relates what
he has seen in his visits to the homes of those men. He tells it to all
who have, or who wish to have, that knowledge of the poor which he
himself has gathered.

To Good People \ Those whom he so calls are, according to him,
France itself, minus the self-seekers and the faction-makers : the
immense majority of the eight millions of electors, who have given the
National Assembly to the country : the eight hundred thousand Na
tional Guards who came forward in June to defend her. He addresses
in succession, the Priests, the Rich, and the Public Representatives.
What he would speak to them of to-day is about an enemy which has
not been defeated or crushed, but which stands forth more terrible
and more menacing than ever : Destitution. The destitution of 267,000
unemployed workpeople in Paris, and in particular in the I2th Ward,
which had been a storm-centre of the insurrection. Ozanam describes
its horror and suffering ; but he also throws into relief its concealed
virtues, its simple Christianity. He makes us weep and wonder.

After that harrowing picture of misery, the article proceeds to
enquire into the causes, which are to be found in moral conditions,
and the remedy for which will be found in " reform of morals through
education rather than through legislation ; through Catholic education
by those Friars and Sisters, who can teach the children of the people
something better, than to spell out the words of a newspaper, or to
chalk on the dead walls of the city the order of the day at the barri
cades."

There is a place also in those schemes of reform, for adult night
schools, for schools for apprentices, for Academies of Arts and
Trades, Public Libraries, Military Associations, Co-operative Societies.
But what Ozanam wishes particularly to create among men of good
will is " the conviction that the public authorities of Paris have not
discharged all their responsibility, when they have voted six million
francs for the maintenance of unemployed workmen, which is at the
rate of three-halfpence per head per day up to the month of the follow
ing April ; and further that the time has not yet arrived to forget
public starvation, simply because winter and cholera are no longer
there to remind us of them."

278 FREDERICK OZANAM

We apologise for giving only the rough outlines of those strongly-
drawn pictures, without the colouring, the emotion, the sparkle, the
movement, without in fact any feature which would demonstrate
their greatness, power, truth and life. It is also a matter for regret
that one can only give the title of another article : Assistance which
humiliates and Assistance which honours \ and of yet another: Alms
giving.

In these the supernatural point of view dominates all else. The
poor man is the intercessor for the rich, and in that way gives more
than he receives. " If you give in the name of God, and if the poor
man prays for you, there is reciprocity of service. The poverty-
stricken family, whom you have helped, has more than repaid the
debt, when the old man, the good mother, the little children bring
your name before His Throne."

Elsewhere the poor man is a priest. His hunger, his sweat, his
blood constitute an expiatory sacrifice which redeems humanity.
The alms, which our religion tends to him in gratitude, are offerings
such as we beg the priest to accept for Masses, while kissing his hand
in thanks.

The titles of the articles do not give a true idea of their character.
They are really a series of studies which embrace the whole doctrine
of Christian Economy, animated by an eloquence, and illumined by a
faith which make them seem indeed pages from the Holy Gospel.

The last of those essays, which come to us in his Complete Works*
is a philosophical and historical study on the Origin of Socialism.
"It is time," he states at the opening, " to demonstrate that the
proletarian cause can be pleaded, the uplifting of the suffering poor
be engaged in, and the abolition of pauperism pursued, without identi
fying oneself with the wild appeals which provoked the June upheaval,
and which still cast a gloom over the future."

Ozanam indicates the fatal doctrines of that false Socialism, contrasts
the better types in the Church, and re-establishes the sacred founda
tions of all Social Science. Philosophy demonstrates that all social
theories from Plato to Muncer and John Leyden, have only resulted
in visionary Utopias, disorder and violence. The historian shows,
on the other hand, what the Church has accomplished for the main
tenance of the rights of property on the one hand, and for the right

"Ozanam's articles are not signed. We must therefore confine ourselves to
fragments inserted in his Complete works: M Manges, vol 7, page 231.

KNOWLEDGE OF SOCIAL WELL-BEING 279

organisation of labour on the other, for co-operation founded on the
twin base of Justice and Christian Charity. The theologian, if I may
call him so, deduces the following principle as a consequence : " In
Christian Society the interests of heaven and earth are so closely
intertwined, that its dogma has never been attacked without shaking
temporal institutions to their very foundations." The dogma of
the fall of man and his redemption by sacrifice and suffering : the
dogma of a future existence, which is the sanction and the complement
of this, encouraging and consoling it with hope : such is the twin-
key of those deep problems : " For their solution, we must never cease
to look to that Christianity, which has equally reproved socialist errors
and selfish passions, which is alone able to realise the ideal of fraternity
without sacrifice of liberty, which is alone able to find the greatest
earthly happiness for men, without forcing them to abandon the divine
gift of resignation ; for that is the surest solace for suffering and the
crown of a life which is finite."

Ozanam continues : " The knowledge of social well-being and of
reform is to be learned, not from books, nor from the public platform,
but in climbing the stairs to the poor man's garret, sitting by his bed
side, feeling the same cold that pierces him, sharing the secret of his
lonely heart and troubled mind. When the conditions of the poor
have been examined, in school, at work, in hospital, in the city, in
the country, everywhere that God has placed them, it is then and then
only, that we know the elements of that formidable problem, that
we begin to grasp it and may hope to solve it."

There were young members of the Society who were fascinated by
visionary Utopias. Ozanam relates for their benefit his own experience
and the recollections of his student days : "It will be said, and it is
being said, ' How long will you continue to work in Catholic associa
tions to practise the charity of the glass of water ? What can you
accomplish in company with men who know only how to comfort
misery, but who do not know how to prevent it ? Will you not prefer
to have a part in those greater associations that strive to tear up the
whole evil from its roots, to regenerate the world, to restore the dis
inherited to their succession ?' That language is not new. The Saint
Simonians and others addressed it to us fifteen years ago when, a small
band, we founded the Society of St. Vincent de Paul ! Heaven forfend
that we should praise our Society and its work ! But when we contrast
what we should have accomplished in co-operation with those men,

2&> FREDERICK OZANAM

with the needs we have helped, the tears we have dried, the marriages
regularised, the number of children we have safe-guarded, of crimes
perhaps prevented, and the anger which we have softened, we do
not regret the choice which God inspired us to make. Make the
same choice, gentlemen, and in fifteen years you will not regret it
either."

Up to that time The New Era, the journal of social pacification
through the medium of Christianity, had practically no opponent
in the Catholic ranks. It was indeed for the sake of the imperative
need of social liberty, that the provisional support of their chiefs
had been given to the Republic. The Univers had declared already
on the 24th February : " The July dynasty is gone, the Republic is
here. Nothing is possible to-day or yesterday without liberty.
Genuine liberty can save all. Every Government has in itself the
faculty of growing strong. It has only to love justice and to foster
liberty."

Montalembert had also associated the names of the Republic and
liberty in his manifesto, dated 28th February, to Catholic Committees :
"Amid every revolution the Church stands erect. In the first place
and before all else, as Catholics, we must, under the Republic as under
the Monarchy, defend, love and serve the cause of religious liberty,
with an ardent patriotism and an imperishable devotion to the glory
and happiness of our own country." His profession of faith to the
electorate of Doubs went so far as to say : " If this form of government
guarantees here, as it does in the United States, the supreme benefit
of liberty to religion, to property, and to family, the Republic will
not have a more devoted son than I. But if it does not stop at violence,
it may indeed have me for a victim, it will never have me as an instru
ment or an accomplice."

We have already noticed that Pcre Lacordaire had enrolled The
New Em under the flag of the Republic, although "prior to February
there was not an atom of republicanism in his nature. If he did so,
it was, he admitted, in the hope of, and with a view to, getting under
its auspices that religious liberty which had been denied by former
governments."

Foisset's prudent and far-seeing mind also ranged itself by the side
of that loyal rally " with a view to holding anarchy in check, and in
circumstances which had not so far given religion any cause for com-

DEMOCRACY 281

plaints/' He joined hands with Ozanam and Lacordaire ; he was
more than their guide, he was their oracle.

Ozanam had welcomed the Republic, not as a concession, not as a
state of transition, but with conviction, nor as a matter of expediency
but as a solution. He had not called for it, but he welcomed it as an
act of Providence. The soundness of his reasons may be open to
question, but not his religious conviction nor the nobility of his view.
He found his reasons to hand in the past history of the civilising
of the barbarians through Christianity, which had been the subject
matter of his research and of his lectures. He found in the Middle
Ages an uninterrupted course of emancipation of which he wrote :
" My knowledge of history forces me to the conclusion that democracy
is the natural final stage of the development of political progress,
and that God leads the world thither." It was the Church that had
carried out that work of emancipation under conditions which caused
Bishop Remi to exclaim to the great leader of the barbarians called
Clovis : " Burn what you have hitherto adored, and adore what you
have burned." Comparing those barbarians of old with the ignorant
and gross mass of the people of to-day, Ozanam does not hesitate to
detest their vices and fear their violence ; but on the other hand he sees
in them a virile energy which gives grounds for the hope that vitality
and regeneration is to be found in them. It will be wanted on the day
when these forces, at present brutish, will have been reduced to dis
cipline and brought under the gentle yoke of Christ the Redeemer.
That was progress by the way of the Gospel. But was it the Gospel
that the middle classes of July had preached to the people by their
word, their example, their Press and their laws ? Must not a govern
ment elected by the vote of the people, understand better the needs
of the people and the duties of the State ? " Let us side with it,
let us trust in it, let us work out the ideal of the Church under a new
regime. Are not the men of the Church and the men of the people to
be found side by side at the foot of the tree of liberty ?"

Much might be said about the comparison and the conclusions which
Ozanam had drawn. While awaiting the fruit by which the tree
would be judged, Catholic solidarity had held steady pending that
adjustment of their different view-points. It had been the same in
the case of the February Republic, and with The New Era in its early
days. But the events of June had changed matters altogether.
With whatever meaning of peace and Christianity Ozanam had been

282 FREDERICK OZANAM

able to imbue the words Equality and Fraternity, they were now
generally interpreted as meaning the reign of the demagogue, the
communist, the socialist, and the anarchist. They spread terror.

That terror was shared by Europe, which had been shaken by the
repercussion of that violent revolutionary upheaval. Italian Liberal
ism was losing ground daily. Pius IX saw his popularity in Rome
changed into hostility when he refused to declare war on Austria, a
prelude to further acts of violence. The patriotic efforts of Charles-
Albert to free Italy from the yoke of Austria had altogether broken
down in July 1848, at Novara before Radetzky's forces. There re
mained only Venice, of all the Lombardy- Venetian States to continue
the fight, protected by its marshes and directed by the dictatorial
hand of Daniel Manin.

We mention these facts merely to mark the beginning of Frederick
Ozanam's grievous disillusionment. The party of confidence was
about to be disintegrated. It was towards authority, such as it was,
that opinion was turning. The attempt of The New Era to
reconcile all parties under the flag of the Republic appeared hence
forward to be a chimera and became a sign of contradiction. Although
that paper was edited and directed by prominent ecclesiastics,
the religion which it placed in its forefront might even be discredited
be being identified with its policy. Animated by that consideration,
Pere Lacordaire decided that the interests of his order and of his
preaching necessitated his resigning from the management of the
paper. He did not cease on that account to hold it in affection.

He notified Ozanam on the 2ist August, 1848, of the " sad sacrifice"
which the management of the paper had decided on by four votes
to three. His heart was against it. His letter was as follows : " We
have furnished the model of a genuinely Catholic paper, at once honour
able, calm, impartial and charitable. We have done our part to
maintain unity in supporting the Church at a most critical period.
Catholics have supported our efforts with enthusiasm. That is some
consolation for our conscience, even if it be not all to the good."

The letter to "his dear collaborator " announced the end of the
month, the 3ist August, as the last date for the appearance of the
paper. Was it Ozanam who induced the management of the paper to
re-consider its decision and who had it rescinded ? There are good
grounds for so believing. At all events The New Era continued to
appear until April in the following year. Pere Lacordaire was now

DESPOTISM AND THE CHURCH 283

only a friend, but still a devoted friend, as would be apparent before
long.*

It was not so with Montalembert In the generous impulse which
induced The New Era to hold out the hand of friendship to democracy,
he saw nothing but a foolish and dangerous illusion ; and in democracy
itself nothing but the despotism of the many-headed multitude and
the degradation of character and mind. His love for mother-Church
was terrified at the monstrous acts of compromise, which the uprise
of the Italian mob made necessary. He now declared therefore that
he had only accepted the fact of the Republic from necessity and
conditionally, and that it had not his confidence. He spurned it from
him.

It was indeed a sad moment for Ozanam when he saw Montalembert
ally himself with the Univers to beat down the poor little flag with
the Cross standing on the rampart.f

The terror created by the revolution, which was everywhere either
supreme or threatening, had paved the way for despotism. Ozanam
in his jealous love for the independence and dignity of the Church,
feared nothing so much as that. He had seen, in the light of his
historical research, absolute power undertake the duty of making the
Church subject to itself in order to annex it : " There were first,"
he says in a beautiful sketch written in his younger days, " the Em
perors of the East, who sought to make the Church a Patriarchate
subject to their autocracy. Then came the barbarians, who pressed
her to unite with them in the destruction of the old Roman Empire :
there were the great feudal lords, who sought to clothe her with steel :
next came Kings, who invited her to take her place in Parliaments
which they controlled with whip and spur. Finally there are the modern
founders of representative institutions, who condescend to reserve a

*Pere Lacordaire wrote as follows from Chalais to Madame Swetchine on the
24th October, 1848 : " You are aware, of course, that, though I have resigned
from the management of The New Era, I approve of the paper and shall
collaborate with it as far as my position as a priest will permit me. ... If
I have left the Press and the Platform for fear of going to extremes, to return
altogether to my religious ministry, that is a simple act of prudence, not of re
pudiation. I have left the field to others younger and more daring than I.
They will hold the ground on their own responsibility and I ought not to do
anything to weaken or divide them." (Correspondence with Madame Swetchine,
p. 478).

|See for the details of this split the well documented book of M. Henri Boissard :
Theophile Foisset, pp. 104, etc., Paris, chez Plon, 1891. Ed. Lettres de Lacor
daire to M. Foisset, Vol. II., Letters, 104, 105, 106.

2*4 FREDERICK OZANAM

seat in an Upper Chamber for her, but who storm if she does not square
her ideals within the narrow groove of their administration, if she does
not run up their transient flag on secular basilicas. But the Church
has never accepted the position of being either imperial, barbarian,
feudal, royal, or liberal, because she is more than the sum of all those',
she is Catholic. Even as the claimants for Penelope, seeing her alone
in the world, and hoping to win her for a spouse and to reign in her
name, offered her in vain riches and power ; so the immortal spouse
spurns such unworthy offers of union."

Those unworthy alliances had too long united Church and State.
This much must be clearly understood ; Ozanam's republicanism was
largely made up of his horror of the existing state of things. This
was none other than Gallicanism,* those secular chains, the scars of
which the Church still bore. Feet and hands seemed held out to him
in appeal. Ozanam was looking on at a mad re-action precipitat
ing itself forward to join hands with what was regarded as a liberating,
but which was in fact an unlimited, and unbridled despotism, which
would destroy at once both the Republic and liberty. He wrote :
' My dear friend, I am very uneasy at the state of affairs in which
we find ourselves, and which has driven the supporters of the Restora
tion to impossible lengths. If you were to know the illusions and to
hear the language of some, I will not say mature, but young men
and statesmen of from twenty five to thirty years of age, who, in their
fanaticism desire neither constitution, nor national representation
nor Press ! The worst of it all is that religion is compromised by these
madmen, by those who make it a point of honour to defend her in the

*The growth of a movement in France (1) to enlarge the prerogatives of the
Church and to restrict proportionately the authority of the Holy See •
and (2) to exalt the authority of a General Council and to depress correspond
ingly that of the Pope.

The first feature was concerned with the growing power of the Kings of France
to appoint to vacant benefices, and reached a crisis in a dispute between Louis
XIV and Innocent XI with regard to the appointment of Crown nominees in
Sees of Aleth and Pamiers. Louis XIV convened an assembly of the French
Clergy in 1682 which passed the Four Prepositions cj the Gallican Clergy. The
first three propositions declare the supremacy of the King in temporals • the
fourth declared that the Pope has the principal share in questions of faith
" nevertheless his judgment is not irreformable unless the consent of the Church
be added." This was to exalt the authority of a General Council over that

the Pope. The definition of the Infallibility of the Pope has made the doc
trinal basis of Gallicanism formal heresy, and the subsequent course of events
has made it unlikely that the Gallican temper, in relation to the supreme ecclesias
tical authority on the one hand, and the civil power on the other will ever re
appear in any large scale in the Church.

CATHOLICS AND THE STATE 285

House, and who afterwards fill the corridors of the Opera with an
account of their adventures."

What Ozanam foresaw, and what made him tremble for the future
of the Church in France was the policy of reprisals which this offensive
and defensive alliance with despotism was to expose her to : " My
dear friend, everyone dreams now only of the alliance of Church and
State. No one remembers the terrible reprisals which those pretty
doctrines exposed us to in 1830. To-day, there is not a follower of
Voltaire, burdened with an income on a few thousand pounds of War
Stock, who would not send everyone to Mass provided he is not asked
to attend it himself."

If the man of honour was in revolt, the Christian was in despair
at the scandal to souls and at the terrible re-action which was threaten
ing : " I see with grief (oh ! that sublime grief) the slackening of that
glad return to the Church, which was the joy of my youth and the hope
of my mature years. I ask myself if, in twenty years' time from now,
we shall be able to worship before the altar without hearing those shouts
and cat-calls, which, twenty years ago, followed the faithful into the
very Church ? Let us watch and pray."

The moral situation for The New Era became daily worse. Suspi
cion and despondency were at work. The position would have been
intolerable for Ozanam if he had not had for his support two of the
greatest and best militant Catholics of the time, and both, one lay
and the other a Friar, men of God.

Pere Lacordiare, one of the two, expressed in his correspondence
his regret at seeing " the clergy and the Catholics of France responding
so badly to the advances of the February regime, which had been so
extraordinarily generous. Any turning back would disgrace them.
They would then appear as weather-cocks in the wind of favour.
"As far as I am concerned, I have accepted the Republic sincerely,
without having had any pre-existing or surviving sentiment in its
favour. But whatever happens I must have regard to what I have
done."

M. Foisset in the Correspondant just as Lacordaire, expressed his
opinion that the honour of Catholics was involved in standing their
ground, and in not withdrawing through fear their loyal support from
a form of government, of which they had no reason to complain.
" The New Era," he wrote on the nth November, 1848, to Montalem-
bert, " is republican. So much the better. I do not see frankly

286 FREDERICK OZANAM

what religion stands to gain by establishing a general state ol antagon
ism between Catholics and Republicans. There are in the ranks of
the latter, as elsewhere, souls to be saved, and I should not wish that
the idea of irreconcilable enmity between the Church and Democracy
should make the return of those souls to God or the doing of justice
by the Government to the Catholic cause, more difficult."

Foisset was still closer in thought to Ozanam when he gave it as
his opinion " that there was a more urgent work to hand for Catholics
than violent reaction, and that was to strive with all their might and
main to remove the hostility of the mass by giving themselves over
completely to the consolation of those in suffering."

" The middle class makes me despair," he writes again to the same,
"it is more selfish than ever. It clings to earth without wishing to
hear of aught else, without seeing whence comes evil, without as much
as suspecting the remedy. We must still pass through sacrifice, and
yet the lesson of June was quite evident. The clergy are continuing
in their groove ; it does not appear to me that they are making
sufficient capital out of the martyrdom of the Archbishop, nor that
they are sufficiently mindful of the Evangelisation of the Poor. The
episcopacy appears to be stunned."

The Univers, on the other hand, stormed against The New Era,
which they now christened The New Error. It occurred to Foisset
to intervene with Louis Veuillot, whose ear he had. Veuillot under
stood that wise man and that good friend and hearkened to him.
He replied as follows on the i8th November : " You will receive my
last article on The New Era. I hope that you will not dislike it too
much. If I have left some expressions in it which cloud the brows
of angels of peace, it is contrary to my desire and through necessity.
If I had not feared some papas like you, who are always present to
my mind even when invisible, I should have slashed away like the
Journal des Debats." The swordsman slashed, but with reserve.

It was not so easy to bring Montalembert to reason "who," accord
ing to Foisset's biographer, " felt his contempt growing daily for a
handful of journalists who storm for the support of a government
flung up by chance and repudiated by the country." Pere Lacordaire
was greatly affected. His grief was further increased when The
Friend of Religion, which had been recently resurrected by the Abbe
Dupanloup, published first one, then a second, letter from Montalem
bert attacking The New Era : " I do not understand," Pere Lacordaire

DEATH OF POLITICAL HOPES 287

wrote to Madame Swetchine on the 7th November, " this grand assault.
The New Era may have deserved critics, it does not deserve an attack
which may stagger Christianity. It is very sad to see friends playing
that role, which was hitherto played only by the mediocre and jealous-
minded, who were ever ready to regard as heterodox every opinion
which was not theirs, and as an enemy, every man who disagreed
with them. It is a step which can only lead to discord."

He wrote at the same time of Ozanam and his collaborators : " Is
it for us to declare war against honourable Catholics, who are rendering
good service by being more democratic than we, and who thus prove
to the world that the Church can work with all forms of government ?"

Pere Lacordaire was however so deeply wounded, that Foisset had
reason to fear a rupture between his two friends.

Ozanam kept silence. Did he think that he ought to do so, when
he found himself in opposition to the great man whom he could never
cease to love and honour ? His suffering was great. His spirit was
in mourning at that moment for the death of all his political hopes.
He unbosomed his sad heart at times in his professorial Chair, at times
in his journal. When he resumed his Chair on his return from holi
days in 1848 he found around him " the large and fraternal gathering
of young men " who never failed him. He spoke to them as follows :

" Last year, gentlemen, I opened this course of Italian Literature
under the happiest auspices. I had just returned from Italy. I
had seen from the balcony of the Quirinal the whole city of Rome
applauding the reconciliation of the Church and Modern Society.
I had been present at the first joys of the renaissance : the people
marching on to liberty on roads strewn with flowers : wise men in
augurating that political and military education, which, in a few years,
was to make Italy mistress of her destiny.

" To-day the cause of independence is crushed by the big battalions.
The cause of liberty is dishonoured in Rome by ingratitude and assassin
ation. The liberty of the world is compromised with that of the
spiritual head of men's consciences. It is again ostracism, despotism
and all that recalls the worst of those ingrate lands, where even the
bodies of their great citizens from Scipio to Gregory VII, are not
allowed to rest ! "

One city, however, was still standing amid those disasters, Venice,
and under the protection of its marshes offered a desperate resistance
to Austria. Ozanam made an appeal on behalf of the heroic queen

288 FREDERICK OZANAM

of the seas : " Let us inaugurate, gentlemen, this year's course with
one good action." He recalled the fact that Venice had offered a
home to Pius IX., and had taken to her arms all that remained of the
hopes of Italian liberty, which she would neither barter for gold nor
for the blood of her children. " But her own resources cannot suffice
for such a prolonged and unequal struggle. A subscription list has
been opened for her pressing need. Many will subscribe for the sake
of her ancient glories, many others for the cause which she is now
standing for. It is for us to remember, gentlemen, her Christian
grandeur, her heroic dead, left on all the beaches of the Archipelago
to save Europe from the Koran. France's own needs are stupendous ;
but she is no poorer than the widow in the Gospel, and she will not
refuse her mite to whomsoever asks for it in the names of God and
fraternity."

The fraternity of the French Republic did not respond to that
appeal in The New Era. It was almost the only appeal made for the
city of St. Mark. Daniel Manin, President of the Venetian Republic,
thanked Ozanam publicly in the Official Gazette, on behalf of that city
which was alas ! abandoned by Europe, bombarded by cannon, and
decimated by cholera. Manin departed into exile, and with him
disappeared the only figure of truly heroic mould, which the Italian
Revolution had thrown up.

Ozanam was indeed justified in writing later to the Venetian noble
man, Tomaseo : " The management of The New Era may have been
at times wanting in worldly prudence, but God never let them be
found wanting in love of justice, of the poor, of your fair land of Italy,
and of her glorious defenders."

The august head of Pius IX. in Rome, menaced by insurrection,
outraged by ingratitude, remained none the less for Ozanam crowned
with the glory of the great measures of political reform, which had
heralded the commencement of his reign. I extract the following note
from a lecture in the 1849 course : — " The complications of the present
and the future do not deprive Pius IX. of the merit of having volun
tarily surrendered absolute power, of having defended the principle
of nationality in his letter to the Emperor of Austria, and of having
taken the initiative in reforms which would have been crowned with
success, if Pius IX. had not had in that land, where education is not
organised, as many enemies of his beneficence as of his authority."

Pius IX. was at that time a fugutive at Gaeta. Ozanam published

PETER'S PENCE 289

in The New Era, in the month of January, 1849, an appeal to the
Catholics of France for the august exile : " Pius IX. does not ask for
himself. The man who, on his first coming reduced his stables by
one-half, who exhausted his own private means in charity, has not
waited for the hour of trial to strip himself of his property. All who
have had the honour of coming into contact with him know well how
little it would cost him personally to go back to the fishing-nets of St.
Peter and the obscurity of the catacombs. It is not long since he was
heard saying that he would thank God as long as he would be left a
wallet and a stick, free to go everywhere and bless the people as he
went. But leaving out of question the Pope himself, there are ad
ministrative departments and institutions under his care, the func
tioning of which constitutes the religious government of Christianity.
Their maintenance is not only an act of charity, but an act of faith in
the vitality of the Church."

The appeal was especially directed to those of large means for a large
subscription : " The Holy Father will see the great names of France
at the head of the list. The appeal honours them, the donation will
bring them blessings. O Holy Father, in stretching out to us that
hand which so many lips have kissed, you will confer on us much more
than you will receive."

Generous Christians decided that the moment had arrived to re
suscitate the old time Peter's Pence. His Grace Dr. Sibour issued a
Pastoral dealing with the matter, ordered public prayers and called
together a meeting of the Catholic Circle, at which an Address to the
Pope was drawn up and an organising committee appointed. Ozanam
was a member of it. In addition to his eloquent appeal in The New
Era, he made a collection at his Monday lecture on the 23rd January,
1849. He first delivered an address, recalling the benefits which
Pius IX. has conferred on Italy and on Christianity, which he con
cluded in these words : " But there is more at stake here than the
interests of Italy. All civilisation is involved, and it cannot allow
the independence of a spiritual power which holds sway over the
consciences of two hundred million human beings to disappear. The
future of society is concerned ; it is wearied with a surfeit of agitation,
it can only find rest in the reconciliation of Christianity and Liberty.
We have been working at the Statue of Liberty, gentlemen, for the
last sixty years. A shapeless figure appeared at our first efforts,
and everyone thought that it would result in a monstrosity. To-day

290 FREDERICK OZANAM

the radiant head can be seen with new features of gentle aspect, and
the uneasiness of the multitude is reassured. There are yet many
who say in passing ' It is only stone, it has no life.' Gentlemen, we
must give it life ; we must seek life for it where Prometheus sought
and found it, in Heaven. Christianity will be the soul of Liberty."

The New Era was in extremities since the retirement of Pere Lacor-
daire ; it had not ceased to struggle rather for honour than for victory :
"If it had ceased to appear in September, 1848," wrote Ozanam,
" it could have been said that Catholics, a band of timid time-servers,
had a republican journal as long as the Republic was a power, but that
they had been in a hurry to veer round with the wind of fortune.
It is now clear, after six months' struggle, after many insults suffered
and pardoned, that there is among French Catholics a sincerity which
can endure sacrifice but not cowardice, which is not swayed by selfish
ness, by ambition or by pride."

It must be admitted, however, that Ozanam did not contribute
regularly to The New Era from January, 1849. He wrote on the nth
March : "It is now some months since I have contributed to The
New Era. I have a book to finish, and my course of lectures occupies
all my time. But all my good wishes are with the paper. I must
confess, however, that the same thing happens with that paper that
happens with others, viz. : That articles appear at times in its columns
with which I do not altogether agree." His brother informs us that
" certain contributors wished to imbue The New Era with more
decided tendencies in the democratic direction."

Were there not also those who went so far as to claim that Chris
tianity and democracy were one ? Montalembert was up in arms at
once : " No, Christianity which will work with every form of govern
ment, will not be identified with any. That must be unflinchingly
and unceasingly proclaimed, face to face with the arrogant pride of
the pigmies of our days. I heard constantly in my youth that Chris
tianity and monarchy were the same thing, and that one could not
be a good Christian without being a good Royalist. I have fought for
twenty years, not without a measure of success, against that former
error which is now no more. I shall fight another twenty against
the new claim, which confounds Christianity and democracy,
another form of the same blind idolatry of victory, force, and
fortune."

But have we not a short while ago read something similar in Ozanam' s

END OF " THE NEW ERA " 291

writings : " The Church will never be regarded as imperial, feudal,
royal, or liberal, because she is greater than the sum of all that, she is
Catholic."

A month later, on the gth April, 1849, The New Era announced
that it would not again appear. A Declaration signed by the whole
management, with Ozanam at their head, gave reasons for their
action, furnished a statement of their principles, and reviewed the
different phases through which the paper had passed. That Declara
tion maintained a high tone and exhibited great breadth of mind.
Ozanam' s hand is recognisable in it.

It first indicated the nature of the undertaking. It was not a
commercial paper. The nobility of its design, namely, the applica
tion of Christian principles to modern society with a view to the
happiness of man through respect for his dignity and his liberty. It
referred to the opposition aroused by the word democracy, which was
naturally regarded with suspicion by men of good will, when they
found it invoked by triumphant anarchy in Italy and elsewhere.
' Yet who can deny the sincerity and indignation with which we
condemned the revolution in Rome, which was inaugurated by
assassination and undermined by ingratitude ?"

" Now while, notwithstanding attacks and misunderstandings,
The New Era was marching on steadily to its goal, a new grouping
of political parties threatened danger. The course of events, which
cannot subvert doctrine, but which can seduce the many-headed
multitude, appeared to place the government of an honest Republic
in the wrong. The majority went that way. The New Era suffered
the inevitable consequence of that defection. But each one had done
his duty. God, for Whom alone men of faith and courage devote
themselves to the hard business of writing, of fighting, of being mis
understood, and of being misrepresented, asks nothing more."

" The first Board of Management of the paper, united to-day as
from the first, resigns in a body. Their farewell breathes neither
discouragement nor repentance. We do not resign in consequence of
the violence of the attacks, nor of that feeling of scepticism which
has succeeded more than once in infecting the very defenders of liberty.
We resign in consequence of material difficulties, in which God has
perhaps hidden His design for the fructification of our doctrines,
even as the very hoar-frosts, which drive the sower home, fructify
the wheat."

292 FREDERICK OZANAM

The signatories are : (Rev.) H. Maret, Ozanam, Audley, Eug. Rcndu
Gouraud, Feugeray, L. F. Guerin.

Some days later, on the 8th May, Ozanam, forwarding a copy of the
Declaration to M. Prosper Dugas, added the necessary explanation :
"It has been bruited around that the management retired on the ad
vice of the ecclesiastical authority. There is no truth whatever in
the rumour. His Grace the Archbishop of Paris, his cousin, the Abbe
Sibour, Right Rev. Monsignor Buquet, Vicar-General, have, on the
contrary, expressed to us their keen regret at seeing the demise of this
paper, a paper which they regarded as necessary for the defence of
religion. Motives of delicacy do not allow us to publish the measure
of the sympathy which we have received from the episcopate. // /
can err in politics I have no fear of erring in religion, when we have on
our side such men as the Abbe Maret,* the Abbe Gerbet, Pere
Lacordaire, who, even when he ceased to contribute, did not cease to
encourage us with his good wishes or to aid us with his counsel.

It was during the last days of Lent that The New Era ceased to
appear. Ozanam was humiliated, but not crushed, by its dis
appearance. Writing to his mother-in-law on Holy Saturday, he told
her of the sweet consolation which his wearied and disappointed spirit
was rinding that week, in the familiar society of Jesus and in the
expectation of His divine visit : " O, dear mother, after the griefs, the
struggles, and the defeats of this life, how consoling it is to enjoy these
brief moments of peace, reclining, like St. John, on the bosom of Our
Saviour. When the head is worn out with work, and the heart is
embittered by controversy and disappointment, one leaves the petty
rivalry of men and contact with wicked passions, to aspire to the peace
of these holy days ! How very good it will be to come to the feet of
the kind Master, who awaits us to-morrow morning."

The great sacrifice in the cause of peace having been made, we find
Ozanam hastening to hold out his hands to his Lyons friends, who were
not of his way of thinking, by showing himself less assertive : " The
truth is, my dear friend," he wrote to M. Dugas, " that divine Pro-

*The Abb6, later Monsignor Maret, Dean of the Sorbonne, in the year 1870, on
the eve of a Vatican Council did, it is true, err on the subject of the Constitution
of the Church in two volumes entitled : Of the General Council and of Religious
Peace. But as soon as he was notified of his error he hastened to withdraw his
work from publication and to make his submission to the Holy See. Monsignor
Pie described that submission as " very detailed, very complete and very
honourable."

END OF POLITICAL ACTIVITIES 293

vidence has not yet unlocked the secret of that terrible year, 1848 ;
that even the best intentioned minds can err in regard to it, and that
the wisest course for Christians is not to hate one another for the sake
of matters of controversy."

In view of the political differences between the President and the
Assembly his early confidence seemed to weaken. "If that be the
goal to which God is leading the world," he wrote to the same, " I
admit that He is leading it over rough waj^s. If I still believe in
democracy, it is in spite of excesses which disgust honest men."

In the same letter he refers to the obscurity of the questions : " Face
to face with the formidable questions with which Providence con
fronts us, and seeing the obscurity which surrounds them, I, for my
part, do not understand why friends grow cold and part, because they
have regarded such questions from a different angle — and solved them

in a different way I cannot do without my friends, and their

memory has become infinitely dearer to me, since revolutions separate
so many friends who had dearly loved each other."

Ozanam also expressed his pleasure at having left the scene of
militant politics for the more serene sphere of study, which he does
not intend to abandon again : " You in Lyons must understand that,
political agitation, in which I have been too much engaged, has not
taken me from my first love, research, that is to say from what can
hasten the alliance of science and religion. Such reconciliation
was never more needed than to-day, for peace will only come into
our dealings with one another when it has been first established in our
minds. What bitter passions ! What implacable resentment ! Ah !
It is full time that God let light into this chaos."

A few months later when the vacation was at hand, Ozanam received
orders from his doctors to go to the mountains for a change of air.
All forms of political activity were expressly prohibited. He was
still there on the 2Oth October, when he wrote as follows to his friend
Dufieux, editor of the Lyons Gazette, a copy of which he had just seen :
' You ask me a question of present political interest with which I
cannot deal, as the medical faculty have decided, that, pending further
orders, politics were not to concern me."

His journey via Lyons had restored him to the warm friendship
of his former comrades : " That is the charm of the journey," he wrote
to Janmot. " My dear friend, repeat that to our Lyons friends ; the
memory of your warm welcome will not be forgotten by me ; it will

294 FREDERICK OZANAM

sustain me in my work and in those moments of depression which
accompany it too often. I thought that I had some ideas, and some
work to do in this world. I am afraid I have greatly over-estimated
myself. Who knows but that God is humiliating and punishing my
pride by withdrawing my health, by making me understand too late
that I am nothing, and that I presumed too much on my own strength? "
He mentioned some of those friends by whose friendship his heart was
warmed : La Perriere, Arthaud, Genin, Velay, Laprade, the Catholic
poet and future member of the French Academy ; but he always gives
pride of place to the Abbe Noirot.

He was in Ferney with his wife's uncle, " but so removed from
public affairs that he returned as if it were from China. In the pre
sence of those glorious mountains which bound our horizon, the
quarrels of men appear to me to be very petty, and I cannot at all
conceive why human beings are so anxious to tear one another to
pieces, instead of enjoying the works of God." His only cause for
displeasure was that he was breathing the air in the shade of Voltaire's
trees and living in the immediate vicinity of Calvin's city.

As a set-off to Calvin he found a Conference of the Society of St.
Vincent de Paul in Geneva, which had been established by Dr. Dufresne,
son-in-law of M. Foisset. The eloquent address which he delivered
to the Brothers is still remembered. It was nearly altogether on the
life of St. Francis de Sales.

His stay in Ferney was cut short by a summons to a meeting of the
Faculty to nominate a successor to M. Guizot : " My attendance
might decide in favour of my friend, Wallon. Apart from considera
tions of friendship, it was a question of putting a Catholic and an ex
cellent Professor into the Chair of Modern History. My duty was to
go by the most direct route, not passing through Lyons. I arrived
in Paris on Thursday. The next day we nominated Wallon."

When Ozanam was requested on his return to again step into the
gap of danger in the editing of a new paper le Moniteur religieux, in col
laboration with the Abbe Gerbet and under the patronage of His Grace
the Archbishop, he declined to do more than contribute a few oc
casional articles : " You must not think," he wrote, " that I am again
going to take up journalism. I have experienced its bitterness. The
present time has nothing attractive enough to draw me away from
the Barbarians and the Fathers of the Church."

The Republic finished its existence on the 2nd December, 1851.

ILLUSIONS 295

It was not an absolute Monarchy that replaced it, but an autocratic
Empire. Montalembert had not waited for that catastrophe to detach
himself from him whom he called " his Prince " and to return to his
friend. He wrote as follows to Madame Ozanam the day after her
husband's death : " A different appreciation of the disasters of 1848 had
separated us for the time being without making us enemies. In the
course of subsequent events, which enlightened both our minds, we
instinctively sought each other out. After that we were of one mind."

Thus finished The New Era after a short but brilliant twelve
months existence. " They had provided an eloquent medium of ex
pression for the Party of Confidence, and a lead to such Catholics as
were unwilling to despair of a critical situation, and who were aiming
at securing for the Church her place in the triumph of democracy.
Misunderstood, violently attacked, ultimately undone by the course
of events which played into the hands of disorder and force, the
enterprise of a handful of noble-minded Catholics could not succeed.
But it sustained courage and upheld progressive and noble ideals in
very difficult times."

Ozanain devoted faith and charity to it, his faith in God and his
charity for the people. But did he not mistake illusions for hopes ?
Was it not an illusion in the first place, to compare the barbarity of
the masses of to-day, who have denied God and reverted to paganism
in beliefs and morals, with virgin races who knew not Jesus Christ,
but who could be converted to Him ? Was it not also an illusion to
regard them as sufficiently responsible and conscientious in the dis
charge of a public duty, to place in their hand the two-edged sword
of universal suffrage ? He lived to see the use that was made of it.
Was it not also an illusion to identify two things, very dissimilar in
themselves, a republic and liberty ? Generous illusions, but none the
less dangerous. He is to be excused for he could not see what we have
seen. History will award due merit to his motives and his activities,
as God, I hope, has already given him his reward.

To-day, when, realising the conviction and fulfilling the prophecy of
Ozanam, the democratic regime has prevailed anew and the Republic
has returned not in the form of liberty, but in that of the worst of
tyrannies, no longer honourable and decent but corrupt and impious,
nay, even disastrous, what conclusions are to be drawn from the
Christian democracy and republicanism of Ozanam, of The New
Era, of the honourable men who were devoted to the interests of the

296 FREDERICK OZANAM

people, and who worked for two full years in the Party of Confidence ?
The first is this : that it was well at the moment that true friends
of the people, men of good heart and good will, should have held up
to France, if it were only for one hour, the ideal and the project of a
republic broad-based on virtue, prudence, liberty, honesty and good
faith, and that those true friends of the people should have been pre
eminently servants of God. The other conclusion is thrown into relief
by contrast with existing conditions, and it is this : that there is not,
nor will there ever be, any possible, moral, acceptable, habitable and
durable republic, save such a one as I have above described, if it be
ever to be found.

297

CHAPTER XXIII.
BELIEF AND TOLERATION,

ERNEST HAVET. — PROTESTANTS. — " V Univers"— COMPLAINT AND
PARDON.

Ozanam was above all and beyond all a man of great faith. J. J.
Ampere says of him : " What Ozanam placed above everything on
earth, what enabled him to undertake extraordinary research, to
produce scientific works, to speak with rare eloquence, to establish
many associations of good works, what distinguished all his actions
and words with an ineffaceable seal was his great Catholic Faith, the
dominating influence of his life."

We have seen how sacred in his eyes was orthodoxy, references to
which constantly occur in his letters, in his lectures at the Sorbonne,
and in the Conferences. Orthodoxy should dominate the proceedings
of every association ; he honours the names of its loyal members, its
doctors, heroes, and martyrs : all other interests must be sacrificed
to it without sacrificing it to any. He stated on one occasion to those
who had at the moment his future in their power : " I cling to Catholic
orthodoxy more than to life itself, loving and serving with all my
heart the Roman Catholic Church." 1 1 is she, her leaders, her ministers
whom he consults and follows. He is ready and willing to tear out his
most eloquent pages, rather than that they should appear stained by
one word against truth. Again : " Catholic Faith stands for what it is ;
we are not empowered to deny or belittle it through good manners or
cowardice." " Neither traitors nor cowards !" " The greatest danger
of all is worldly respect, which is ready to compromise the integrity of
dogma in discussion or the claims of the Church in business matters."

A broad apostolic spirit of toleration was co-existent in Ozanam
with that doctrinal rigidity. It forms one of the most remarkable
and most charming traits of his character. Lacordaire has already
dealt with that feature in his grand style. M. Ampere, who had

298 FREDERICK OZANAM

himself personal experience of that side of Ozanam's character, speaks
of it more simply thus : " Toleration, in Ozanam, was not to be con
founded with weakness. He had a breadth of view which enabled
him to appreciate differences, even in opponents. He had an intimate
knowledge of men. His gentle and discreet patience always suc
ceeded in disarming their prejudices. His conduct was a touching
imitation of that of Our Lord, who never broke the bent twig nor
extinguished the smouldering lamp."

M. Ampere was quite right. Ozanam's spirit of toleration did not
proceed altogether from his native courtesy, it was a fruit of the
grace of the Gospel which was in him. It was a bright ray from the
splendour of his faith, and a movement from the Christian gentleness
of his soul.

Another writer of the same school, Hippolyte Rigault, of the Debats
also attributed to piety Ozanam's spirit of toleration which delighted
him, as well as his orthodoxy which edified him : "I wish," he
wrote, " to insist on the attractiveness of his piety. I wish to show in
him a Christian, indulgent towards his neighbour, severe towards
himself, a friend to noble ideals, a defender and example of toleration,
but immovable from the straight line of orthodoxy to which he had
bound himself in his early years ; the worthy grand-nephew of that
Ozanam of the I7th century, a celebrated mathematician, who said :
' It is for the doctors in the Sorbonne to debate, for the Pope to decide,
and for mathematicians to proceed to Paradise by the perpendicular.'
But a less profane pen than mine would be required to adequately
portray such rare virtue."

Ozanam showed the same gentleness in all his habits of life, in his
works of charity, in his private life, in his public life as apologist or
defender of the faith.

He showed, in his relations with his colleagues and members of the
Society of St. Vincent de Paul, whether visiting or being visited, no
matter of what rank or class, that cordiality which is defined and re
commended by St. Francis de Sales in these words beloved of M.
Gossin : " Cordiality is a feeling of pleasure which is experienced in
the heart at the sight of one who is beloved ; it is a ray of joy from the
heart showing that we are glad to be with a brother. That pleasure
is diffused through the whole body, it is a fruit of divine love united
to the love of our neighbour. If Charity were an apple, cordiality
would be its bloom."

TOLERATION

299

Pity had always the last word in his judgments on men. If some
one were discussed in his presence, who was bankrupt in truth or virtue,
and whom one could only grieve for, one of whom it is said ' He is
lost !' Ozanam would grieve too, but always add : " After all, that is
God's secret, let us believe that His secret is one of mercy."

In the exercise of charity he was very far from refusing the co
operation of Dissenters who, knowing his generosity, placed a con
fidence in him which was reciprocated with a touching delicacy.

Ozanam fought Protestantism persistently and vigorously. But
if Protestants used him as an intermediary with the poor, he was their
devoted and grateful servant. The Abbe Perreyve relates that it
occurred to a young Protestant minister to entrust a sum of money,
which he had collected among his co-religionists, to a Catholic Society
of Charity for distribution among the poor. Ozanam accepted the
commission with gratitude. He brought it to the Conference and
gladly acquainted the members with the source of the donation. One
of the members thereupon praised toleration in religious matters ; he
proposed to devote this unusual donation, in the first instance to the
Catholic poor, and the surplus (if any) to Dissenters. While he was
speaking, amazement was depicted on Ozanam's face. One judged
from the trembling of his hand, as he pushed it through his long hair,
that his heart was no longer able to control his impatience. He burst
forth suddenly : " Gentlemen, if this view should unfortunately
prevail, if it is not clearly understood that we help the poor without
religious distinction, I shall go forthwith and return to the Protestants
the donation which they have given. I shall say to them : ' Take
it back, we are unworthy of your confidence.' ' The Abbe adds :
"It was not necessary to put it to the vote."

But it was pre-eminently in the demonstration and defence of
truth by word and pen, that the man of rigid faith was also the man of
all- conquering charity. " The strong are meek," says Plato. It is
exactly because he was one of those " strong men of faith " that
Ozanam was also one of those meek of whom Our Saviour has said
that " they shall possess the land." Thus that man of meekness
reproved bitterness in polemics, not merely because it wounded, but
because it drove men away instead of attracting them. It will be
remembered that, in the conference on the Literary Duties of Catholics,
when he had drawn attention to the rules of Christian controversy,
which are respectful and sympathetic towards those who deny, who

300 FREDERICK OZANAM

doubt, or who are seeking truth, the Archbishop of Paris had stood
up and approved his address in the name of the God of Peace.

Now, in this, Ozanam himself set an example to others and we shall
say that happy and blessed is the man of whom the following supreme
witness can be given : " One of my greatest consolations in the decline
of my career is the certainty that, while defending truth with all my
might, I have never offended anyone."

With those dispositions of charity and conciliation, Ozanam did not
hesitate to declare himself a supporter of the principles of '89, in so
far and no further as they were compatible with the teachings of the
Gospel. He regarded liberty, equality, and fraternity, as modes
of the law of love, three daughters, as he often said, born under the
protection of the Cross of the Redeemer of the world and of His divine
Blood. He described them in his lectures as adopted by the Church, as
enthroned by her in those early Christian societies, the history of which
he was sketching, fourteen centuries before the French Revolution
pirated their names and misapplied their meaning. Ozanam was theore
tically and practically devoting all his efforts to leading back contem
porary society to the original true and sacred meaning of those words.

Ozanam had at his side in the Sorbonne M. Ernest Havet, just then
acting for M. Victor Leclerc, and Master of the Meetings in the £cole
Normale. He was exactly of his own age. Already well-known for
his erudite works on Pascal, the unbeliever was not yet the master
of negation, which his work on the Origin of Christianity was to reveal
him later. He had been a curious reader of The New Era ; he had
just finished reading Civilisation chretienne chez les Francs, and had
been astonished at Ozanam's statement at the end of Chapter VIII,
on the great part played by the Church from the earliest Merovingian
times in the emancipation of slaves, commoners and serfs. He wrote
him a letter full of congratulations, which was also full of questions
and doubts.

Ozanam's reply dated the 22nd of May, 1849, is a very remarkable
one. A more striking example could not be found of the gentleness
of charity, which, pressed to the furthest limit of concession, still
safeguards its position, and then proceeds to make a firm profession
of faith. "In the tempestuous times in which we live," he wrote
his colleague, " it is a rare pleasure to be read, and to enjoy an inter
change of ideas, without an expression of that violent dissent, which
keeps so many great minds apart."

ERNEST HA VET 301

M. Havet appeared as the champion of the " triumphs of modern
liberty and of the principles and of the men of '89." In his reply
Ozanam does not oppose them, if those triumphs are legitimate, if
the men of then and now are not of the number of those who, " not
believing in another life expect everything of this, and who seek to
reform the world by substituting a rule of pleasure, for that of sacrifice
and devotion." Ozanam could say to Havet, subject to an express
reservation of faith and Christian morals : " We are both servants of
the same cause— civil and political— but I have this advantage over
you, that I believe that cause to be more ancient and, therefore, more
sacred. Let me tell you, my dear colleague, that if you had not
stopped at the threshold of Christianity, if you had, as I have had,
the happiness of living within it, of having studied it for eighteen
years ; if your mind had been fed with the principles of the Doctors
of the Middle Ages and of the Fathers, who are worthy of your study,
you would date from the Revolution neither liberty, nor equality, nor
fraternity, which come to us originally from Calvary."

But would not that doctrine need explanation for a mind imbued
with false philosophy ? Ozanam regrets "that he finds himself un
able to do more than refer to matters which would require the frank
ness of a friendly conversation," which opportunity he offers.

On the other hand, did not M. Havet regard The New Era as a little
Church broken away from the parent, " in order to raise on the debris
of the old religion a form of belief, which would be better suited to
modern times?" Ozanam undeceives him by pointing out that
Pius IX. had encouraged him, that the princes of the Church had
patronised him : " As for me, my dear colleague, do not confer on me
the honour, which I do not seek, of being greater than my Church,
which is your Church also, for it is to your Catholic mother, to your
Catholic ancestors, to all the traditions of Catholic education, that
you owe the elevation of soul, the gentleness, directness, and firmness
of character which attracted me. You do me too much honour, but
you do not know me well, when you believe that I am alone, or even
nearly alone, in holding those ideals which find favour with you. You
desire to confer distinction on me, and yet I am only a feeble Christian.
You deserve to make the acquaintance of those better than I. You
will too, some day. You will see that the Church, which the pagans
of Augustine's time, the Albigenses of the thirteenth and the Pro
testants of the sixteenth century, regarded as finished, has always its

302 FREDERICK OZANAM

inspiration and its virtue. May you experience its consolations,
which alone can meet the trials of this life and soothe the anguish of a
tormented age."

Then the farewell, the au revoir, the handshake: "We have many
things in common. If there be any one thing that raises a cloud
between us, believe that I am very willing indeed to do everything
possible to dispel it. Yours, etc."

Ozanam remembered M. Havet to the end of his life. He followed
that soul in his thoughts and in his prayers. Why did he not win
him ?

After the appearance of the Histoire des Girondins, and Ozanam's
damaging criticism of it, as well as of the previous Voyage en Orient
and of Jocelyn, Lamartine's name does not again occur in Ozanam's
correspondence. In 1848, when Lamartine's name was on every
body's lips, one does not find the independent editor of The New Era
in personal touch with that ephemeral idol of democracy. But in 1852,
when he had fallen from popularity and power, and had become a
plaything of hostile political parties, Ozanam recalls to his Lyons
friends the duty of considering the feelings of, and of respecting in
their royalist Gazette, the man of great heart. God in His love had
visited him with adversity and humiliation in order to lead him back
to Himself. It was to Dufieux he wrote. We have not that letter,
but Dufieux's reply, dated yth of May, 1852, shows that it was under
stood : " How shall I thank you, my dear friend, for the lesson which
you would teach me ! I set such high store on your good opinion,
that I should be indeed miserable if you thought it possible that I, a
friend of Lamartine in his prosperity, should abandon and attack him
in adversity. It was when he was at the summit of his glory, and
when he had shown kindness to me, that I wrote three articles for the
Reparateur attacking la Chute d'un ange, which had been just published
by him ; you were good enough to read advance proofs of those articles.
In 1848, while Lamartine was in power, an attack was made by the
Government on the priests in Lyons. I wrote him a warning letter in
these terms : ' If our faith and our priests are touched, it is not one
Vendee you will have but ten.' But now, that he is humiliated and
despised, I have sent him letters of respect and even of affection. I
have not failed to pay due consideration either to his greatness or to
his adversity." Ozanam had been understood and obeyed.

Ozanam's liberty of mind, which was composed of faith and zeal

P£RE LACORDAIRE 303

for the salvation of souls, tended in the direction of the widest possible
interpretation of the belief in the mercy of Our Saviour. This doctrine
had its master and model in Pere Lacordaire. Ozanam returned
from the fifth Lenten Conference in 1851 in transports of joy, as if he
had heard an inspired canticle to the charity of Jesus Christ. " It is
an outstanding event in the ecclesiastical history of our age," he said.
" The Priest laid down that most consoling and most probable doctrine
of the mighty number of the saved, in contradistinction to the Jansenist
theory of the small number of the elect. He took occasion to protest
strongly against the views of those who see around them only evil
and damnation. He poured forth the most eloquent language, which
I have ever heard from his lips, telling the mercies of God to those
who labour and are heavy laden, that is to say to the great majority
of human beings. When he was commenting on the evangelical
beatitude, ' Blessed are the Poor,' charity pouring from his lips, and
lighting up his whole figure, he had one of those transports which we
read of in the lives of the saints. The congregation of four thousand
persons, hanging on his words under the arches of Notre Dame, asked
themselves if they were listening to an angel or a man."

" The mighty number of the elect:" In the same letter Ozanam
makes a special note of that, to repudiate the spirit, which would make
truth the exclusive prerogative of one party or sect, which would
separate instead of unify, which would represent truth as gloomy
instead of cheerful, and which would raise up insurmountable barriers,
reaching to heaven itself, between men of good-will.

But his very scrupulosity for orthodoxy makes him fear lest Lacor
daire should have been carried away by his eloquence to lengths,
which his own spirit of moderation was not able to follow. He indi
cated that hesitancy in a ten-lined postscript to that same letter, in
which his love for moderation is not in any way derogatory to his
veneration for that well-beloved master: "In speaking as I do of
Pere Lacordaire, I must not be taken as approving all that flowed
from his lips in his oratorical flights. There were two unhappy ex
pressions. But I cannot bear that he should be judged by a single
word, rather than by a complete sermon ; particularly when such a
holy and self-sacrificing priest is with other Dominicans, presenting
to this self-indulgent age, the model of what a human life should be."

It is well known that he did not spare his audience in the matter of
severe truths. " But even there I cannot but find many sublime

304 FREDERICK OZANAM

features to charm mankind. I think it is well to show religion as
beautiful as a queen, and to induce men to hope that she is true, before
proving her to be so."

The same letter closes with these noble words, through which
palpitates the soul of an apostle : " Ah ! my dear friend, what a trou
blous, but what an instructive time it is, through which we are passing !
We may perish, but we must not regret having lived in it. Let us
learn from it. Let us learn, first of all, to defend our belief without
hating our adversaries, to appreciate those who do not think as we do,
to recognise that there are Christians in even/ camp, and that God
can be served now as always ! Let us complain less of our times and
more of ourselves. Let us not be discouraged, let us be better."

But that toleration for all shades of Dissenters was not well received
by all Catholics. Ozanam could well remember the savage attack
which his Address on the Literary Duties of Christians in polemics had
drawn on him from /' Univers. That journal had not been silenced.

Reviewing in June, 1850, a volume of poetry by M. de Francheville
in what he calls the literary supplement of the Correspondant, Ozanam
concluded his appreciation with the contrast of " two directly opposite
schools of thought, which desired in our ov/n times to serve God with
the pen. One claims for its leader, M. de Maistre, whom, however, it
exaggerates and misrepresents. It selects the most violent paradoxes,
the most controversial theses, provided only that they irritate. It
presents truth, not in the form that attracts, but in that which repels.
It has not before its mind the idea of bringing back unbelievers, but
of inflaming the passions of believers."

" The other school aims at finding in the human heart the secret
links which bind it to Christianity, at developing in it the love of the
true, the beautiful, the good, and then at exhibiting those ideals to
it in revealed faith towards which every soul aspires ; at leading back
to the fold souls which have strayed, thereby increasing the number
of Christians. I must say that I prefer to belong to the latter school.
I cannot forget the saying of St. Francis de Sales that more flies are
caught with a spoonful of honey than with a tun of vinegar." M. de
Francheville was congratulated by Ozanam on the fact that he had
chosen the poetry of love in preference to the poetry of anger."

Ozanam had been careful to state in his article that " both schools
desired to serve God by word and pen with equal sincerity," thus
excluding any question of conscience or of good faith.

A SAD SPECTACLE 305

Those few lines which escaped general notice in a bibliographical
critique, received a long and angry reply on the 3rd of July in
/' Univers from the hand of its greatest master in his grandest manner.
The reply was unsigned ; it did not need a signature ; the master's
hand was clearly visible. Louis Veuillot had a right to complain
of the severity of the representation of him, he had a right to defend
himself. Where the angry writer of polemics was altogether wrong
was in debasing a question of principles to one of personalities. Then
a doubly sad spectacle was to be seen. It was heart-rending in the
first place to see the proud Christian figure of Ozanam and his school
repeatedly attacked with insinuations and accusations. They mis
represented his noble intentions and cruelly charged him with
cowardly desertion, with weak compliance, with timid silence, with
false flattery, with acts of compromise, of repudiation, and almost
with complicity. Not a single instance was quoted in support of those
charges. That continued through four or five columns, in which the
venerated name of apostle is blasted with the most scorching irony.
It is with reluctance that I set that down. Ozanam's remonstrance,
which will be read, did not say a word that should not be said. His
pardon will be read later.

In the second place, it is not less heart-rending to see a great Chris
tian, gifted with great talents, distinguished by many services, loose
against such a brother the fiery arrows of an anger which made him
blind to all sense of truth and justice. Did Louis Veuillot ever regret
that mischievous reply ?

Hurt in all that he held dear, character, conscience, dignity, and
even faith, Ozanam suffered torture from the wound which long
remained open. The pain was redoubled when a letter arrived a few
days later from Dufieux, informing him of the impression of trouble
and division which had been produced on Ozanam's friends in Lyons,
and indeed on the writer himself, by the article. Were they not relying
on him and on his splendid talents, to make up to the Church for the
celebrated men who had abandoned or denied her ?

Ozanam's reply, dated the I4th of July, is plaintive and humble,
but it is vigorous and dignified. It breathes the most honourable
spirit that could come from the heart of the knight without reproach,
who had been wounded by one of his own.

Ozanam demurs first to the too-high honour which has been done
to him in Lyons : " I have never given you any reason to form such

306 FREDERICK OZANAM

high hopes for me ; I have never aspired to take the place of those
great men whose defection you deplore. I know myself well. If God
has given me industry, I have never mistaken that gift for genius.
Certain it is that, in the lowly position in which I am, I desire to
consecrate my life to the service of faith. But I consider myself a
useless servant, a labourer of the eleventh hour whom the Master of
the vineyard has only engaged through charity."

' That being so, it seemed to me that my days would be well occupied
if, notwithstanding my lack of merit, I was able to retain a number
of young men around my professorial Chair, to establish in their eyes
the principles of Christian science, to seek to make them honour what
they despise: the Church, the Papacy, the Clergy. I wished to
collect those thoughts into books, less fugitive than lectures. All my
hopes would be fulfilled if some erring souls should find therein reasons
for abjuring prejudices, dispelling doubts, and returning, with God's
help, to Catholic Truth. That is what I was hoping to do for the last
ten years without any ambition of a higher sphere. But neither have I
had the misfortune to desert."

But what tortured him beyond measure was that, knowing all
that, his friends in Lyons could have suspected his loyalty, because
of such an attack : " You who know me so intimately, who have re
ceived the overflowing and outpouring of the depths of my heart, who
have followed every step of my career, that a denunciation in a news
paper could make you doubt my good faith ! A lay man, without
authority or mission, who remains anonymous, charges me with be
traying our cause through treason, cowardice, and self-interest ; he
even goes so far as to accuse me of apostacy. Thereupon you take
alarm, you commence to be afraid that I do not believe in hell ! You
place me in the very embarassing position of having to bear witness
for myself ! Well, St. Paul, when unjustly accused did so, and I
shall do likewise."

The evidence which he found himself constrained to give is moving
to tears : " Would I be, my dear friend, exhausted with fatigue at
thirty-seven years of age, reduced to a state of premature infirmity, if
I had not been driven on by the desire, by the hope, if you wish by the
illusion, of serving Christianity ? Was there not then any danger for
me in reviewing religious questions, in rehabilitating Catholic institu
tions, when, as a removable Acting Professor, I should have been
considering the philosophic views of those who had my future in their

HIS DEFENCE 307

power ? Was there no danger in assisting alone, with my presence
and my voice, M. Lenorment, when he was attacked in his Chair ?
Was there no danger, when in 1848, the revolution passed daily before
the Sorbonne ? If I have had any success in educational and academic
circles, it is by hard work and a competitive concursus that it has been
won, not through corrupt compromise or patronage."

How jealously he safeguarded and defended his faith ! ' To be sure
my dear friend, I am but a poor sinner in the sight of God : but He
has not permitted me to cease to believe in eternal punishment.* It
is false to say that I denied, misrepresented, or attenuated any article
of faith. May I add that, if my friends in Lyons had known of my
last published work, which the Academy crowned last year, viz., La
Civilisation chretienne chez les Francs, they would have discovered
that I controverted the historians ol those times, wherever they are
at variance with Catholic Truth, with the honour of the Church, or
with the Papacy."

The man of peace proceeded to defend himself from the charge of
having taken the initiative in this controversy, or of having given the
bad example of bitter polemics between Catholics. He had not as
much as mentioned the name of I' Univers, still less of its editors, nor
had he said anything whatever which would give them any justification
for indulging in outrageous and scandalous personalities.

Ozanam had mentioned the names of M. de Chateaubriand and
M. Ballanche in his literary critique of M. de Franche vine's poetry, as
the leaders of the school of peace. Ozanam explains the allusion in
this calm reply : " As far as the references to M. Ballanche and M. de
Chateaubriand are concerned, I have not put them forward as models.
I have simply said that those two names had sustained by their renown
the school of thought, which had been inaugurated or rather restored
by the Genie du Christianisme. That is a matter of opinion. It is
not for me to defend the memory of M. de Chateaubriand. I knew

*L' Univers had not said that Ozanam did not believe in hell but that he
had raised doubts in praising those who did not jo believe. What good do
you do to others or to yourself in causing them to think that you do not believe
in eternal hell ? You do them an injury in their most serious interests and you
decefve them as to your own profound convictions." That was an aUusion ^to
Ozanam's printed eulogium of Ballanche, who was in that error. But had not
Ozanam himself charged it as such : " There was a point he wrote, where
one had reason to fear that he had strayed from the strict line of °^°doxy'in
which his heart was fixed." Ballanche had moreover retracted. Was Louis
Veuillot ignorant of that fact ?

308 FREDERICK OZANAM

him but slightly, but I knew him to be in his late years a practical
and sincere Catholic. His published works, le Genie du Christianisme,
les Matryrs and les Etudes historiques, have been of great assistance
to me, and I know others who say the same. M. Ballanche held a
wrong view on eternal punishment. He retracted and died at peace
with the Church, having received the last Sacraments with great piety.
His published works, in which that error finds a very small place,
are directed to the triumph of Christian truth. That is a distinction
of which we, men of Lyons, should be more proud."

What steps was Ozanam going to take to answer those attacks ?
None. What specific answer did he make to those charges ? None
whatever, save the following to his friends in Lyons : " I find myself
so bereft of all combative spirit that it seemed to me more Christian-
like not to reply at all. I had the right of reply, and several friends
advised me to that course. But I surrendered it for the sake of peace.
I have been much consoled by the number of people of position, who
expressed their indignation at those attacks."

His reply was read)-. His brother informs us that " after much
prayer and meditation, he decided to repel insinuations that could be a
source of scandal to others. However, distrusting the angry feelings
of one who had been wounded in what he holds most dear, he pre
ferred to consult M. Cornudet, then a Counsellor of State. The latter
listened with sympathy, and advised : " My friend, you are a Christian,
forgive. Your silence, better than speech, will bear witness to your
faith." Ozanam tore up the reply and threw it into the fire.

L' Univers was severely censured in September, 1850, two months
later, by the Archbishop of Paris, Monsignor Sibour. Ozanam be
lieved that it would be more dignified and more Christian-like to
refrain from any reference to that condemnation, which indeed he
regarded as unduly severe. In answer to M. Eugene Rendu, who
urged him to expressly support it, he wrote : " The fact is that /'
Univers had treated me too badly for me to join in its condemnation,
and your sense of delicacy will appreciate the sentiment which re
strained me from writing to the Archbishop on the matter. However,
having heard your opinion, it does seem that it would be improper
for me to keep silent longer." He wrote, as he explains, regretting
" the extreme vehemence of the words with which the Pontifical Act
concluded, even though it was necessary to stay the course of the
movement for the subjection of the Church in France, and to replace

LIBERALITY OF THOUGHT? 309

religious power where Jesus Christ had originally placed it, in the
hands of the bishops."

His brother adds : " Matters of such a painful nature, working on
a simple, delicate and impressionable mind like Ozanam's had their
repercussion on his health, which had been already badly shaken by
the year's work. The doctors thought it necessary to order a two
or three months voyage to withdraw him from constant worry."

Such in brief is the doctrine and conduct of the great man of faith
as a man of good works : inflexible in principle, indulgent towards
men of good- will, in religious matters cheerfully submissive to authority,
in politics an ardent partisan of a full measure of liberty, but sub
ordinating everything to the supremacy of the Church, the greater
glory of God and the salvation of souls.

When Ozanam's letters appeared in 1866, one, and not the least of
his admirers, reviewed them in an orthodox journal with sympathy
and moderation. However, in the closing words of the article he had
some reservation to make upon the liberality of mind of that sincere
and loyal Catholic, who was however, he maintained, attracted by
taste, associations, and environment, to a school of thought, the dangers
of which the writer condemns as follows: — "In putting themselves
forward as the defenders of a loosely defined liberty, they exposed
weaker and less sincere minds to what actually happened at a later
period, that is to say, the danger of confounding the exception with
the rule, the application with the principle, of considering as absolute
truths maxims of toleration which may, in a given state of circum
stances and to avoid greater evils, be accepted as provisional rules
of conduct, but which reason, any more than faith, could not elevate
into principles. To do so would be to fall either into that false
liberality of thought which was condemned by the Encyclical of 1864,
or else into that so-called sincere and independent Catholicism, which is
none other than disguised Rationalism, or degenerate Protestantism."

The objection could not be better expressed. At the same time
it relieves Ozanam of the responsibility for the views that were objected
to and consequently for the condemnation that was uttered. I
do not wish to repeat here all that I have said touching Ozanam's
scrupulous orthodoxy at all times ; I wish only to say here that the
few lines taken from his letters by the £tudes religieuses, from letters
which were domestic and private, and which were written currente
calamo had quite a different complexion and meaning when considered,

3io FREDERICK OZANAM

not isolated and detached, but as a whole and in their context, with
all the attendant circumstances of time, place and person.*

The just and reverend critic concludes as follows: " If I do not share
all Ozanam's views, I still respect them, because they were allied in his
mind with noble and legitimate ideals. It would be impossible for any
one who reads his works not to do justice to his purity of intention
and nobility of thought. He might err in policy but not in religion."
Such had been indeed, in other words, the hope and prayer of Ozanam.

Ozanam was dead eleven years when the " false liberalism " fell
under the ban delivered ex cathedra in the Encyclical Quanta cura
and of the Syllabus in 1864. He died prematurely, leaving on record
in his will a solemn declaration of his loyalty " to every teaching of
the Holy Roman, Catholic, and Apostolic Church, in which he found
truth and peace."

*So it is with this passage, the only one bearing on the subject, which the
Rev. Pere Grandidier extracts from Ozanam's letters, doubtless because he
believes that he finds therein the avowal of conscious dissent with the belief
prevailing in Roman circles. Etudes, vol. IX., May-June, 1866. Ozanam
wrote to M. Dugas from Rome, Easter Day, 1847, as follows : " I am able to say
for your guidance that, unless I am mistaken, the most distinguished men here
support the theory of liberty put forward by /' L'nivers, while they disapprove
of the violence of its language and the bitterness of its polemics. It is to be
desired that such questions as are agitating France would conclude, not with a
rupture, but with an understanding between the Church and the State."

Now, to understand the above lines and to grasp Ozanam's mind fully, it must
be remarked that the very vague expression theory of liberty is not to be taken
as applicable to a general doctrine of liberalism, but, most probably, to the
specific burning question of the liberty of education, which precisely at that time,
April, 1847, was being debated vigorously in the Press, in connection with the
Bill for regulating Education which had been introduced by M. Salvandy.
L' Univers supported the broader view of religious liberty which had, in sub-
tance, if not in form, the approval of those men in Rome whom Ozanam had
met ; and which they, as well as he, wishing as usual for conciliation, desired to
see accomplished by agreement between Church and State. Ozanam thought
it was desirable to communicate to M. Dugas, " for his guidance," that view, as
having the support of distinguished people in Rome. Such information would
be of use to M. Dugas as one of the management of the Lyons Gazette (See Pere
Lecanuet's Montalembert, vol. II., all chap. 15)

But where in all this is there any trace of dissent between Ozanam and Rome
on the question of liberalism.

Two other passages, not quoted by the venerable editor of the Etudes but to
which he refers, advocate expressly religious liberty, the separation of the
spiritual and temporal powers (which is not the same as that of Church and
State), and announce emphatically the triumphant progress of the Faith in
dissenting countries. Ozanam does not lay down these views as absolute dogma.
His correspondence does not dogmatise ; the historian deduces from the actual
state of affairs the conclusion that common liberty is better for the Church than
patronage. The distinction between the thesis and the hypothesis is always
present and preserves doctrine intact. Ozanam's complete and correlated
correspondence does not present any other view.

THE SERVICE OF TRUTH 311

The final proposition which was condemned and punished in the
Encyclical and the Syllabus annexed thereto, is as follows : " The
Roman Pontiff can and should keep pace with progress, liberality of
thought, and modern civilisation." That implies the notion of a
bargain and of an evolution in the doctrine of the Church. Ozanam
knew perfectly well that truth cannot compound. He did not say,
he never said anywhere, that the Church should square itself with
the ideas, principles, and progress of modern society, by surrendering
one jot of her tradition or constitution, which is precisely the error
lurking in liberal Catholicism. He said the very reverse. He main
tained that modern, as well as ancient society, should square itself
with Catholicity, the parent of all civilisation, by acting in accord
with its beliefs, precepts, and institutions, which he exalted. Now
between those two conceptions of the relations of the Church and of
Society there is not merely a difference, there is a chasm. If Ozanam
had lived to read the Encyclical Quanta Cum and its Syllabus, there
can be no doubt whatever that he would have welcomed that separa
tion of light from darkness by the hand of the Holy Father, whom he
calls the Pope of modern times. He had followed him too closely
in his political paths, not to continue to do so in the more exalted
ways of the Gospel.

But if perchance, writing ten or twelve years before that condemna
tion was pronounced, and those definitions laid down, some expressions
have appeared in his correspondence which were not in perfect accord
with those definitions, who could be astonished, or who could make
it the basis of a charge against him ?

It is certain that he never erred deliberately and knowingly, and
he could say with a clear conscience on the threshold of eternity :
" If there is one thing that consoles me on leaving this earth before
my work is accomplished, it is that I have never worked for the favour
of men, but always in the service of truth."

After the advent of the Empire, militant politics find no further
place in Ozanam's corrspondence. I notice the following reference
only in one of his letters of that period : " Whatever the future may
have in store for us, God's interests are safe for the time being. I
cannot say as much for those of the world."

God's interests, God's Kingdom, Ozanam's hopes sought a refuge
there. If we wish to know the whole state of his mind, his regrets
on the one hand, his holy hopes and consolations on the other, we have

312 FREDERICK OZANAM

only to read the following serene and noble lines, written to his learned
friend, the Venetian Tomaseo, who was then staying for the benefit
of his health in Corfu : " The days which separate us from 1847 in
Venice have indeed multiplied our disappointments. See, how little
the great lesson of 1848 has taught men ! Behold them all, one
after another, declaring solemnly before heaven and earth, that they
were never wrong, that those mighty events have neither caused them
regrets nor taught them ! Behold how they resume their old hatreds,
their daily petty passions, their sloth which recoils at any new idea !
They are doing all in their power to make Providence strike a second
time and strike harder."

" I have but one hope, which is however great, that Christianity
will assert itself amid general decay. Faith has never seemed so
lively as in the past year. The mass of the people who do not know
where to turn, are hastening to the Master Who has the words of eternal
life. France is indeed the Samaritan woman of the Gospel ! She
has frequently gone to draw water from sources which did not quench
her thirst. She will henceforth follow Him who promises the living
water, that she may not again thirst. I do not know how Europe
will be re-constructed ; but what one cannot fail to appreciate is that
the same ideal, which civilised barbarians, is again moving the waters
of our times. Men are opposed and likely to clash .... But
Christians are to be found in every camp. God scatters us under
hostile flags so that, in a divided society, there may not be a single
party, a single section, in which tongues will not be found to praise
and bless God the Redeemer."

313

CHAPTER XXIV.
THE ITALIAN FRANCISCAN POETS.
CHRISTIAN CIVILISATION IN THE STH CENTURY.

ASSISSI, ST. FRANCIS. — JACOPONE DE TODI.— THE FRANKS. — MORAL
TRIUMPH.

The gloom of France during the years 1848-50 could not obliterate
in Ozanam's mind the memory of Italy in the spring of 1847. The
vision above all of Assissi, less dazzling, less bewildering than Rome,
gave delightful repose to his heart and his thoughts. He dwelt re
peatedly on the day, that happy da}r, when he and his wife had lived
with St. Francis, breathing his soul and treading in his footsteps.
"I spent one day, all too short for me," he wrote, "in the ancient
city of Assissi. The memory of the saint was as fresh, as if he had
died but yesterday, and had just left to his country the blessing which
is still to be read on the gates of his city."

That day had been one long impression of religion and poetry. But
it was not merely impressions which he had brought back, but the
idea and plan of a book which would reproduce the scene: "It was
there that the idea took a definite shape," he said. "On leaving
Assissi the plan of the work took shape as I saw receding the white
walls of the Sacred Convent, the town nestling under its protection,
and the slope which it crowns, resplendent in the golden rays of the
setting sun."

That little book was to be The Italian Franciscan Poets in the i$th
Century. St. Francis had left behind him a school of poets whose
inspiration and model he was. Ozanam was all afire to make known
their songs which were indeed canticles " identifying with the subject "
he said " my recollections and impressions, with all the freedom of
travellers in dealing with places which have charmed them."

The first two chapters of what was to be the Franciscan Poets,

314 FREDERICK OZANAM

appeared in the Correspondant in the month of January, 1848. It
was in the same place and at the same time that the author was fight
ing a great battle for his " barbarians." There was indeed little
resemblance between the work of mystical poetry and it.

Bonaventure appears in this work, breathing lyrics under the school
uniform. Friar Pacificus, who was called the King of Verse, and
Jacomino de Verona. But those, and all other figures, pale before a
greater poet, Jacopone de Todi. The Franciscan Poets were then
silent for a while in the Correspondant, until the Fioretti completed
and crowned a volume, which was to become the most popular of all
Ozanam's works.

That is not surprising, for it is the work into which he threw most
of himself and of his poetical and mystical soul. In this history,
what are we looking for in his books but himself, his soul, and his
life, showing how he resembles his books and his books himself ?

Ozanam, speaking of the birth-place of St. Francis, in a letter to
M. Janmot in 1836, used the same language as Dante : " Do not speak
of it as Assissi, that does not do justice to it ; call it The East, that is
properly its name." Ozanam's soul, illumined by the East, was in
full sympathy with that of the saint. The poet in him was in harmony
with the sacred poet who saw and sang God visible to him, mirrored
in all his creation, from the mighty sun and stars to the most insigni
ficant and most despised of His creatures, calling them all brothers
and sisters. The man of charity in him was in full sympathy with
the saint, who adored Jesus Christ in the person of the poor, who
made himself like unto the poorest of the poor, father and founder of a
society of poor, and who made poverty his spouse and his queen.
Ozanam, as a man of peace, was moreover at one with the soul of the
man of peace who undertook the mission of reconciliation, traversing
Guelph and Ghibilline cities one after another, breathing a peace
which he induced them to conclude at the foot of the Crucifix . ' ' Francis
of Assissi thus appears," said Ozanam, " as the Orpheus of the Middle
Ages, taming the ferocity of the wild beasts and softening the hard-
hear tedness of men."

Ozanam had heard Pere Lacordaire speaking of St. Francis of Assissi,
whom he called " the man mad with love." His poems are canticles
of the love of God. Ozanam, the historian of an age that produced
sublime works, ascribes all to the love of Jesus Christ, as the only
lever capable of raising the earth to the heavens. He writes elsewhere

JACOPONE DE TODI 315

"Antiquity knew nothing like it, neither knowing nor loving God
it did not love man. But consider the Christian era and you will
find that love has become mistress of the world ! It has vanquished
paganism in the amphitheatres and on the funeral pile. It has brought
new peoples to civilisation, has led them to undertake the Cru
sades, and has made heroes greater than those of epics. It enkindled
the torches of the schools in which letters survived centuries of barbar
ism. It dictated the hymns of the Church, that is to say, after the
Psalms of David, the most sublime harmonies that have consoled the
weariness of the earth."

Ozanam proceeds to review Jacopone de Todi after St. Francis
of Assissi and three other poets. He confides in us that it is not with
out hesitation he is taking up the life story of that extraordinary
man, who passed from the cloister to prison and from prison to the
altars. " Troublous times are to be met with in that story/' he said,
" the Church on fire, and a great religious in conflict with a Pope : a
great poet pouring out scorching satire and red hot anger on the
Lord's anointed, enkindling popular passion against him and scandal
ising the whole Church of Jesus Christ. But God's glory never de
pended on concealing the faults of His elect. The Christian historian
reproduces the elect just as they are, passionate and fallible, but cap
able of effacing many years of error by one day's repentance."

Ozanam implores mercy for the error, and pardon for the repent
ance. The insurgent Friar was a man of good faith, who believed
he was satirising, not the legitimate head of the Church, but a usurper
of the Apostolic See. It was a blind, but a holy passion, which armed
him, while it led him into error ; his heart was the first to be torn
with grief, by the very scourges which he inflkted on Holy Mother
Church.

Ozanam desired that the cruel error of that misguided Friar should
furnish a warning as to the respect and the reserve which should be
maintained among Christians in polemical disputes. " Others will be
scandalised by the spectacle," he writes, " we should learn from it.
We should learn to believe that, in times of discord, virtue is possible
in the ranks of those who are not with us, and to moderate our attacks,
lest our blows should fall unwittingly on heads that are worthy of all
respect."

What made Jacopone de Todi a poet and a great poet was love
and grief, and therein lay his attraction for Ozanam.

316 FREDERICK OZANAM

Love for Jesus Christ burns in those canticles : those of St. Teresa
and of St. John of the Cross do not express more passionate languour.
Love for the Virgin Mary throbbing in that heart overflows in tears
to the feet of the Mother of Dolours in that beautifully sad hymn of
the Stabat Mater wherein the poet depicts her standing broken but
erect by her Son's side. "Catholic liturgy," said Ozanam, " holds
nothing more touching than that sweet sad plaint, with its monoton
ous strophes falling like tears : with the sweetness of a grief all divine
and consoled by angels : with such a simplicity of language that
women and children understand one-half of its popular Latin from
the sound of the words themselves, and the other through the chant
and through the heart."

Then Jacopone, he too, is the poet of the poor and the lover of
poverty, of which indeed he sang. Ozanam loves poverty and writes
as follows : " I honour in him the poet of the poor celebrating poverty.
The people had no better or greater servants than those who taught
them to bless their destiny, who made the spade lighter on the shoulder
of the labourer, and brought a ray of hope into the room of the weaver.
Many times, doubtless, as the sun was setting and the people of Todi
were plodding their homeward weary way from the toil of the fields,
along the slope of the hill, the men urging the cattle, the women bear
ing on their backs their sunburnt babies, some Franciscan Friars,
their feet covered with dust bringing up the rear, Jacopone's song
would be heard mingling with the tingling of the Angelus bell : "Sweet
Poverty, how we should love thee ! Poverty, my dear little Poverty,
to drink and to eat, a porringer sufnceth. Bread and water and herbs
of the fields, behold all that Poverty needs. Should a guest arrive,
she adds a pinch of salt, etc."

' Towards the close of 1306 Jacopone, advanced in years and worn
with suffering for divine love, fell seriously ill and felt the approach
of death. Friar Jean de 1'Alvernia, who loved him dearly and
was loved by him in return, arrived in time to give him the kiss of
peace and the Most Blessed Body of Jesus Christ. Jacopone, radiant
with joy, sang the canticle, Jesus our Hope, recommended a holy
life to all, raised his hands towards heaven and breathed his last.
It was Christmas Night and the moment when the Priest intoned
the Gloria in excelsis at Mass in the neighbouring Church."

M. Ampere called the Franciscan Poets " a masterpiece of refinement
and grace. I insist on the word grace," he said, " because it remained

HIS IMMENSE WORK 317

a characteristic of an imagination which an austere life and
laborious study had not blunted. One is amazed to find that it was
possible to write that charming work with such imagination, and to
pursue at the same time scientific research, as appears in his report
to the Minister on his literary mission. Both are the fruits of his stay
in Italy and were garnered side by side.

The Franciscan Poets appeared in the Correspondant in the months
of December, 1847 and January, 1848. In the latter month he wrote
to Foisset representing that publication as but a page, an episode in
an immense work, one cut stone in a vast edifice which he traced out
for him. The letter, which must be reproduced in full, is a light
house shining over a waste of waters.

" My two essays on Dante and on the early Germans are the corner
stones of a work which I have already partially done in my public
lectures, and which I should like to take up again and complete. It
would be a literary history of Babarian Times, a history of Letters,
and therefore a history of civilisation from the decadence of Rome and
the earliest dawn of the genius of Christianity down to the close of the
I3th century. I should make that the matter of my lectures for ten
years, if necessary, and if God spared my life. My lectures, which
could be taken down in shorthand, would form the first draft of a
volume which I would revise and issue at the close of each year.

" That system would infuse into my written work a little of the en-
enthusiasm which I feel sometimes in my professorial Chair but which
deserts me in my study. It would have the further advantage of sparing
my health, and of making available whatever little knowledge and
strength I possess. The subject would be an admirable one, because
it would result in revealing to modern society the long and laborious
course of education carried out by the Church. I should commence
with an introductory volume in which I would attempt to show the
intellectual state of the world at the advent of Christianity ; how much
the Church salvaged of the heritage of antiquity, and by what means
it preserved that legacy ; then the origin of Christian Art and of
Christian Knowledge, from the times of the catacombs and the First
Fathers of the Church. Every excursion which I made in Italy last
year was directed to that end.

"A description of the barbarian world would follow much the same
lines as in my work on the Early Germans : then their entry into the
Catholic fold : the prodigious labours of such men as, Boetius, Isidore

3i8 FREDERICK OZANAM

de Seville, Bede, St. Boniface, who rested neither night nor day, but
carried the torch of learning from one end of the invaded Empire to
the other, penetrated into inaccessible places, and passed on the torch
from hand to hand down to Charlemagne. It would be necessary to
study the constructive work of that great man and to show that
literature, which had not perished before his time, was not extinguished
afterwards.

" I should then show all that was great in England in the time of
Alfred, in Germany under the Othos : I should come to Gregory VII
and the Crusades. I should then have the three most glorious cen
turies of the Middle Ages to deal with : theologians like St. Anselm,
St. Bernard, Peter Lombard, Albert the Great, St. Thomas, St. Bona-
venture : legislators of Church and State, Gregory VII, Alexander
III, Innocent III and Innocent IV, Frederick II, St. Louis, Alphonsus
X : the quarrel of the priesthood and the Empire : the Communes,
Italian Republics : chroniclers and historians : Universities and the
Knowledge of Law. I should have to deal with Romance, poetry,
the common patrimony of all Europe ; and incidentally all epic tradi
tion peculiar to each people, which are the foundations of national
literatures. I should see modern languages in the making, and my
work would close with the Divine Comedy, that most sublime monu
ment, the culmination and the glory of the period."

Full of enthusiasm for the magnitude, and, attracted by the beauty
of the work, Ozanam is nevertheless affrighted at the thought of the
infirmity of the worker, and adds with melancholy : " That is, my dear
friend, what a man is prepared to undertake who barely missed dying
eighteen months ago, who has not yet quite recovered, who has to
look after himself in a dozen different ways, and who, as you know,
is both irresolute and weak."

" But I am counting on God's goodness if He will grant me health ;
on my course of lectures which will carry on my plan, on the compass
to which it will be necessary to reduce so many questions for an edu
cated public, anyone of which would occupy several lives. I count
somewhat on eight years uninterrupted preparation for lectures,
wherein I have endeavoured to collect and fix the results of my re
search, having first submitted them to the critical opinion of kind
friends."

His great work would be entitled : History of Civilisation in the
Times of the Barbarians, which had already its commencement in his

HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN CIVILISATION 319

Germanic studies. In February, 1847, Part I of the first volume ap
peared, The Germans before Christianity : the second volume in 1849,
Christianity among the Franks. The Gobert Prize was awarded the
same year to the two volumes by the French Academy. In his course
of lectures on Letters in Italy during the barbarian period, Ozanam
had already begun the work which he subsequently named History
of Christian Civilisation in the $th Century. Yet those three volumes
were with him but the introduction to the great historical period
which extended from Charlemagne to St. Louis and Innocent III,
which covered the Middle Ages down to that strange and grandiose
poem which transported him with delight.

That gigantic historical edifice might be represented as a Cathedral.
The 5th Century would be the portico, flanked by two Roman towers,
Ancient Germans and Franks, giving entrance to a long nave of six
centuries, leading up to the sanctuary in which Christ, the Conqueror
of barbarism, reigns in triumph amid Pontiffs, heroes, doctors, saints,
and poets, who were adoring Him, on His altar, His throne, as appears
in the Disquisition on the Blessed Sacrament.

Ozanam began his lectures in 1849 by unfolding to his students
the bewildering but fascinating distance which he wished them to
travel with him : "Gentlemen, those who will follow me to the end
of my research will have to cover a period of approximately one
thousand years, a sixth part, and possibly the most crowded part,
of the existence of the human race. We shall travel slowly with that
rapt attention with which one witnesses an absorbing spectacle. Is
there any study more entrancing than the correlation of centuries,
the raising up of followers to the illustrious dead one hundred, five
hundred years later, demonstrating the constructive spirit triumphant
over destruction ?"

To be equal to the demands of such a task, he must be supported
and sustained by the encouragement of his juniors. Ozanam was
beginning to feel his strength wane, to be prematurely old ; his illness
had sounded a warning note : "Gentlemen, "he said, " I should not
dare to face the difficulties of such an undertaking if I were not sus
tained and encouraged by you. I call these walls to witness that
if I have, at times, received inspiration, it is here, either from the echo
of the voices of the great departed ringing in my ears, or from the
impetus of your warm sympathy. My plan may be rash ; if so, you
will share the responsibility, you will make up for my physical weak-

320 FREDERICK OZANAM

ness. I shall grow old in the work, God willing. But the cold of
old age will not chill my bones, if I can return as I do to-day, to warm
my heart by the fire of your youthful years."

His students understood and encouraged him ; his audience grew
with the plan of his lectures. He had formerly shown Christianity
struggling with the Northern Barbarians, he shows it now face to
face with those of the West in that Roman Empire which had nothing
better to put forward for the education of undisciplined masses of
people than moral, religious, and political decadence, something
worse than their own barbarism. How then would the regeneration
of that ancient Empire be accomplished which was sinking under
the weight of its own vices rather than before the attacks of the bar
barians ? What was to happen to that Empire which was dying,
but which preferred to die with a laugh on its lips ?

" Men are not civilised save through conscience," replies Ozanam,
" and the first victory in the conquest must be over their own passions.
But did the philosophers of Rome ever concern themselves with the
state of the souls of millions of conquered barbarians who were sunk
in ignorance and sin ? That could not be done prior to the advent
of those missionaries whom zeal urged across the rivers on the banks
of which the legions had halted. The missionaries were only occupied
with the saving of souls, but in saving them they saved all."

Ozanam brings before our eyes those ancient missionaries, bishops,
friars, doctors, preachers, virgins and frequently martyrs. It is
again Rome, but a new and spiritual Rome, that sets out anew to
conquer the world, through the medium of mind and heart — a thank
less task in which she was to be abandoned by those who had been her
first loyal supporters. While the Goths, Vandals and Lombards were
passing over to Arianism, the Church selected by predilection, a
German tribe in whose greatness all the West was co-operating.

The need was indeed urgent and great. At the close of a lecture
Ozanam was able to state, with Salvien's book in his hands, that
there were only to be found in the ancient territory of the Empire,
Pagans and Arians, a double state of barbarism. It was chaos and
anarchy ; what hand could bring in order, unity and truth ? In the
dismemberment of the Empire where was the head that could re
construct the body ? Where were strength, mind, hope, and life
itself to be found ? Ozanam asks himself that question.

" Now one day," he replies in a gesture which recalls Lacordaire,

THE FRANKS 321

" Bishop Remi stood, on Christmas Day, 496, at the portals of his
Cathedral in Rheims. The approaches to the Church were shaded
with embroidered hangings, which floated from the windows of the
houses along the way. The porticos were festooned with white
draperies : the fonts were full and the chrism at hand upon the marble
slab. Waxen candles nickered on all sides. Such was the feeling
of piety which pervaded the holy enclosure, that the barbarians
believed they were surrounded by the perfumes of Paradise. The
chief of one of the warring tribes bent beneath the baptismal waters ;
three thousand followed. When they came forth Christians, four
teen centuries of empire, of chivalry, of crusades, of scholasticism,
that is to say of heroism, liberty and modern civilisation came forth
with them. A great new nation was born into the world, The Franks."

The Franks ! With them began in the 5th century a new era of
civilisation, in the course of which Christianity poured forth its trea
sures of knowledge, charity, virtue, and grace. Each lecture
emphasizes some benefit — In the first place Christian Law illuminat
ing that world which it could have destroyed, but which it preferred
to reform, at first with reflected rays under pagan emperors, later
with direct rays under Christian emperors : Literature finding its way
gradually into the Church, the Church welcoming it as a human pre
paration for the Gospel : Theology confounding the fables of paganism
and the subtleties of heresy with the indestructible permanence of
its dogma : Christian Philosophy, uniting, in the teachings of St.
Augustine, the sublime speculations of Plato with the truths of Re
vealed Religion : the Papacy staying the torrent of invasion with its
authority : Monasticism, training educators, benefactors, apostles
and models for new races : Christian Morality mindful of the slave,
the poor, the worker, the woman, whose dignity it restores in con
secrated marriage : Eloquence, History, Poetry, Art, regenerated and
attempting, not without success, to glorify what they had decried and
to decry what they had glorified. Each lecture was to be a chapter
in a volume which would be more eloquent even than the lecture.

Ozanam's instruction was not mere eloquence, it was moral action.
As he had said of the civilising Church, it was to the conscience of his
audience that he addressed himself, and through which he wished to
win them. So his soul was in his speech. He sealed each lecture
with the impress of his own character, which was goodness and virtue,
no less than knowledge and truth. He was thus a truly great, prudent,

322 FREDERICK OZANAM

and beneficent influence with young men ; he was welcomed, ac
claimed, and beloved by them.

Montalembert confirmed that view in a letter to Ozanam's widow
immediately after his death : "I sat many times," he said, " with
his young men at the foot of his chair, rejuvenating myself by drink
ing in his noble, sincere, and entrancing words ; I am inconsolable
at seeing it empty and for ever silent. There was nobody, in my
opinion, who could be so well relied upon to hold aloft the standard
of Catholicity and Science, to protect youth, and to safeguard it against
scepticism, license, and the idolatry of reason. He was, and he was
entitled to be, its guide, philosopher and friend."

There is, for example, a fascinating lecture on Christian Women
of the 5th century. Speaking in that connection to the young men
on the subject of marriage, Ozanam emphasized the nobility of the
sacrifice it entails, by pointing out the duty of bringing to the Sacra
ment the fulness of virtue which they themselves would expect to
find in the woman of their choice : " There are two cups : in the one
is purity, modesty, and innocence : in the other an unsullied love,
devotion, consecration of the man to the weaker vessel, whom yester
day he did not know, with whom to-day he is one, and with whom he
will spend his future life. Both cups must be full to the brim in order
that the union may be equal and may bring down heaven's blessing."
Was not Ozanam inspired by his own experience, the dearest of all ?

There is also a lecture on Christian Charity. Ozanam could not
have omitted that subject. In order to contrast what the two reli
gions, Pagan and Christian, have done for the elevation of labour,
the freedom of the slave, the assistance of the poor, Ozanam examines
their respective monuments : " Yes, antiquity surpassed us in build
ing monuments to pleasure. They understood better the art of
enjoyment, and they spared no pains to construct coliseums, theatres,
circuses, capable of seating 24,000 spectators. They knew better then
how to enjoy themselves. But we have outdistanced that record
in the innumerable monuments erected for the relief of suffering and
weakness, which our fathers christened by the sacred name of hotels-
Dieu (hospitals). The ancients knew how to enjoy themselves ; but
we have another and a better science than that. They knew sometimes
how to die, that much must be granted ; but dying is a brief business.

. . . We understand what constitutes human dignity, what lasts
as long as life endures. We know how to suffer and to labour."

TRUST IN GOD 323

But on the other hand, as he notes very wisely, we must beware
of the unreasoning contention, very much the fashion in 1840, which
would place the ideal of social perfection in The Middle Ages. " We
must beware ; if we make that claim, the minds of well meaning people
will be prejudiced against a period, the wrongs of which we would
appear to justify. Christianity would be held responsible for all
the disorder of an age in which she is represented as having had
dominion over every mind and heart. We must look at the evil,
formidable as it was, to know and appreciate the services of the
Church during centuries, when her glory consisted, not in having
conquered, but in having struggled."

The revolutions and disasters in those ages of transition furnished
Ozanam with the subject matter for another lecture, specially directed
to the generation of the troublous times of 1848. It was a lecture on
patient suffering and trust in God. He said to those young men :
" When we have delved in the forests of ancient Germany and in
the obscurity of the Middle Ages, we shall find that the results of our
researches are not so far removed as they might appear, from the
hopes and dangers of the present times. We shall learn not to despair
of our own age, when we have examined more menacing periods,
during which violence seemed supreme, despising truth and detesting
law. Knowing that civilisation cannot perish, we shall also learn
that it can win through better by the pen than by the sword, by
charity better than by justice" : and further on : " Face to face with
our decadence, which is too obvious, we must not ignore the progress
which is not so obvious. Let us remember, in our moments of dis
couragement, that our Christianity has survived worse times. Let
us say, as Aeneas said to his despondent companions, that we have
passed through too many trials not to see, with God's help, the end of
this : 0 passi graviora, dabit Deus his quoque finem !"

Ozanam did not now have to write out his lectures. The
stenographer took the words living from his inspired lips, in readiness
for the day when the author would construct with them a finished
and perfect work of art. But would that day be vouchsafed to him ?

He himself was beginning to doubt it. We read at the close of the
twenty-first lecture, the last of the year, the following words, which
sound like a farewell : "I like to think, gentlemen, that our opening
lecture in this hall next Session will find me more punctual. I do not
know, gentlemen, whether I shall finish that course with you, or

324 FREDERICK OZANAM

whether, like so many others, I shall not live to enter the promised
land. But I shall, at least, have seen it from afar. Whatever may
be the extent of my instruction, of my strength, or of my life, it will
not have been wasted, if I have induced you to believe in progress
through Christianity ; if I have rekindled hope in your young souls, hope
which is not only the inspiration of the beautiful, but the principle
of good, which not only enables us to do good deeds but to discharge
high duties. Hope is essential to the artist to guide his pen or his
pencil aright ; it is none the less necessary to the young father to
found a home, or to the labourer to cast the seed into the furrow, in
obedience to the word of Him Who said, "Sow."

Ozanam had sown the seed ; it had germinated ; the ears were ripen
ing ; would he not bind the sheaves ? His 1849-50 lectures were
awaiting book form. After les Polles franciscains, la Civilisation au
Ve si eel e, revised and finished was to form two volumes, while
his lectures were proceeding. But physical strength was failing the
great and courageous spirit. What would become of the work ?

The doctors prescribed several months complete rest in travel, or
in the country. We shall now see Frederick Ozanam dragging him
self along, during those painful years, 1850-2, on holidays and en
forced absence, his condition alternating constantly between health,
illness and despondent weakness.

325

CHAPTER XXV.
BRITTANY.— ENGLAND.— THE WORK OF PUBLICATION.

BRITTANY.—" The Fioretti of St. Francis "— " The $th Century."—
SCEAUX. — LONDON AND DIEPPE.

1850-51.

Ozanam's frail physical constitution had not entirely recovered
from his attack in 1846. Continuous work, and unmerited accusations
completed what illness had begun. The same doctors who had in
terned him the previous year in Ferney, far from libraries and politics,
now ordered him three months' complete isolation and rest, at or
near the sea, during the vacation of 1850. He went to Brittany, ac
companied by his wife and child, to enjoy the consolations of religion,
the grandeur of nature, and the charm of a circle of friends who were
ever ready to welcome him.

He went first to St. Gildas de Ruiz. After some baths and promen
ades, all pain left him and he felt at ease. He wrote on the loth Sep
tember : " I spent a very happy time there, under a cloudless sky
by the mighty restless sea enjoying complete peace of heart, with my
wife and child who are improving daily in health. There are in this
life some moments of happiness which, though short and fleeting,
yet repay years of suffering." He had written previously on the 3rd
September : " I am not dissatisfied with the state of my health. As
I am living in the open air and — to my shame be it said — in complete
idleness, I feel much better. Praise be to God, who gives me even a
moment's respite, to recuperate my health and to prepare me to suffer
like a Christian."

Is the sight of such a soul under the hand of God less impressive
than a tranquil sea in which a cloudless sky is mirrored ?

An annual procession at Vannes in honour of St. Vincent Ferrar,
who died there, the wild landscapes of Morbihan, the ruins of the

326 FREDERICK OZANAM

Castle of Susinio, Gavrinis, Locmariaker, druidical grottos, the tumuli
of Carnac, threw him into a state of pious meditation and deep reverie.
The people's piety recalled that of Italy, but it was more serious and
more stable : the country did not rival the elysian beauty of the Italian
scenes and skies : " When one has seen the banks of the Rhine and the
Tiber, one must not look for beauties of nature in Brittany. When
one desires to make a world's tour, one should not commence with
Italy, for the memory of its sun throws all that follows into shade."

Thus impressed and interested in different ways, Ozanam arrived
at the castle of Truscat to his friend M. de Francheville. The spell
which Brittany cast over him began in a visit to the Island of Artz
on the religious feast-day of the place. He received an invitation
to visit the isle from M. Rio, whose birthplace it was. M. Rio was the
passionate exponent of the wonders of Christian Art, the friend of
Montalembert, a professor of history at the Louis-le-Grand Lycee,
and lately tutor of young Albert de la Ferronnays. He was the heroic
young Royalist who, at the age of seventeen, led his comrades of the
Vannes Seminary during the Hundred Days against the Imperial
forces until the Bourbons returned. They immediately decorated
the wounded youth for the defence of their throne. Ozanam relates
that " M. Rio did the honours of his native island. After High Mass,
at which the whole population assisted kneeling out to the square, he
received us in the cottage of his mother, a dear old peasant, whom we
were charmed to see in her simple country costume, enjoying the
affection and esteem of her family. We duly honoured the rural festi
val in a feast, which was not altogether rural."

Ozanam was entranced by the procession, as it wended its way in.
the evening to the music of Breton hymns, down the green slopes to
the sea illuminated with the last rays of the setting sun. His little
daughter walked in the procession clothed in the native costume.
Another feature of the scene gripped his heart. " The most touching
incident," he said, " was that of a young man of twenty- three years
of age, who had been intended for the priesthood, but who had be
come incurably ill. He was standing on the threshold of his home,
dressed in black, having crawled there to see for the last time, the
procession of his native place — I heard that young sub-deacon's prayer
above the chant of the hymns, offering to God the sacrifice of his
life . . . Must not God be touched at such a sight ? How could
we avoid being deeply moved by it ?"

TRUSCAT TO KERBERTRAND 327

That letter to his brother Charles, in which the morning's Communion
had its due place, ended with a word for " old Guigui. " Tell her that
we talk of her from morning to night. Ask her to remember me in
her prayers.

The joy in receiving such descriptive letters was spoiled for the youm?

doctor by the thought of the fatigue, which they must have caused

3 invalid. "What do you want?" replied the poet. " I have

ich a scrupulous conscience that it experiences a twinge, if I have

passed a day without doing something. Besides I can never grow

accustomed to enjoying anything without wishing to share it with

those whom I am foolish enough to love I" " But that is only fooling

with medicine/' insisted the young doctor— "Oh ! as to that I have

no fear," replied his dear client, " I am afraid that I shall need it

for a long time to come. The ease of these last few weeks has made

me believe prematurely that I could throw away my crutches But

God is to send me further trials, I am not the less grateful to Him

that He has given me two months' good rest."

Ozanam left Truscat and his friend de Francheville towards the
end of September, for the castle of Kerbertrand, where another dis
tinguished friend, Viscount de La Villemarque expected him " De
Francheville's boat placed us on board a sloop which had been chartered
) take us across the Morbihan basin, under a glorious sun which tinted
the sea with silver and the isles with gold. We then entered an arm
the sea five miles long, after which we arrived in good time at the
town of Auray. We pressed on the same evening to St. Anne, the
Breton's national place of pilgrimage. It was late on a week-day ;
nevertheless, in less than one hour we saw several bands of pilgrims
come and pray fervently before the miraculous statue of St. Anne, or
follow the Holy Way of the Cross in the cloister close-by. We were
glad to kneel amid those good country people so full of faith and
devotion. We prayed more fervently than usual, sustained and, as
it were, uplifted by better prayers than ours."

At Kerbertrand, near Qtumperle, Ozanam enjoyed happy days in
the distinguished and hospitable family of the author of the Bardes
and the Legendes celtiques. The renowned archaeologist was then
collecting and translating the poems of the country of Armor. Ozanam
pressed him to publish them : " Have you taken up Taliesin's lute to
re-arrange the strings, or to give us the Welsh triads, from which duty
I shall not discharge you." The two friends spent much time together

328 FREDERICK OZANAM

over congenial matters as M. de La Villemarque afterwards recalled :
"One day — it was near the hour for retiring — we were reading together
the poem in which the bard, Liwar'hen laments the death of his
twenty-four sons slain in battle. We came to the verse depicting
the youngest son, the best beloved, whom the father rests on his knees
as he dies at the foot of a pear-tree, and in which he says, 'A bird was
sweetly singing in the pear-tree over the head of my son before he
was committed to the earth : it broke the old bard's heart.' We read
no more in that book. I looked at Ozanam, his eyes were filled with
tears." M. de La Villemarque adds : "As for me, I cannot bear to
think of my friend, then near his death, above whom was also singing
the bird of poetry. But his sweet voice breaks my heart and I too
cannot finish."

We shall not follow Ozanam in his exploration of Finisterre after
Morbihan. He names the principal stations : "I saw the severe
shores of St. Gildas and the enchanting bay of Douardenez ... I
went and sat courageously on the furthest projecting rock of the
Raz Point, from which I contemplated with deep feelings that ocean,
which was the boundary of this world for so many centuries. . . I
put up that night at Lesneven on the Brest to St. Pol-de-Leon
route, close by the celebrated pilgrimage of Notre-Dame de Fol-
Goat. We had a run over the magnificent harbour of Brest, paid a
visit to several of the vessels, saw something of the naval dockyards,
and returned much impressed with the naval greatness of France."

" But, to speak truly, what attracts me to this region is not so much
the country as the people ; the primitive monuments, the Druid
stones of Locmariaker and Carnac, the cromlechs of Crozon and all
the lost traditions which they stand for ; the legend of their first
apostles, and all the extant traces of the heroic combats between
Christianity and the ancient gods ; the Middle Ages and the Renais
sance, of unique interest in the country of Duguesclin and of Anne
of Brittany. Then there are the morals of those good people, which
are very little contaminated by the triviality and the corruption of
ours.

" In truth, if we were only in search of wonderful scenes of nature
and of Art, we had done better to put away our walking sticks and
live on our recollections oi Vesuvius and the Vatican. But one would
indeed have to make a world tour to meet a livelier faith, better men,
or more modest women."

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FACSIMILE OF OZANAM'S HANDWRITING AND SIGNATURE.

PUBLICATION OF LECTURES 329

Ozanam had also found — where cannot one be found to-day — a
Conference of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul. It was at Morlaix :
" We were welcomed most affectionately and put up for three days
by a family whom we did not know, and with whom we have no bond
of union save that of membership of the Society of St. Vincent de
Paul. I paid a visit to that young Conference, which is very active."

The return journey was made by way of Lorient, Vannes and Nantes.
It had done him good. " The air of Brittany has worked wonders,"
he wrote to M. Ampere immediately on his return. " The repose of
mind, exercise, and sea air, have restored my strength. Without
being exactly copper-lined, I believe I am sufficiently strong to be able
to work quietly this winter. Madame Ozanam, in whose complete
charge I was, points triumphantly to my cheeks, to which the un
accustomed colour is returning. Your little girl friend is in the same
condition, so that we form a trio that is pleasant enough to look upon
for those who are foolish enough not to dislike us !"

Somewhat re-assured on the question of his health, or appearing
to be so, Ozanam considered that the moment had arrived for the
publication of his two last years of lectures, 1849 an(i 1850, the first
sketches of which had appeared in the Correspondant. We have already
given a summary of them, and indicated the outstanding features of
the loftily-conceived series of lectures on the Civilisation chretienne
au Ve siecle. The codification would necessitate not merely a revision,
but the complete recasting, entailing an immensity of labour which
frightened the author. Longing for perfection, always dissatisfied
with his own products, casting and re-casting his own work twenty
times, Ozanam found, as we already know, literary composition very
difficult ; the handwriting in his manuscripts, twisted, irregular, and
full of erasures, shows that. He had now, in addition, to reckon with
relapses of a malady, which made the pen fall from his fingers and
paralysed his inspiration. It was in one of such moments that he
wrote as follows to a friend : " I have no illusions, and I ask myself
if my shoulders are strong enough to carry the burden of the history
of letters in Barbarian Times ; and if, indeed, it be worth while to
incur the trouble of writing, in order to add a few more pages to what
each winter's wind sweeps from our gardens and out of the memory
of men." Ozanam was at that moment in a state of perplexity which
is known to every writer. He was about to release to the public a
work, which had been frequently re-handled and never finished, and

330 FREDERICK OZANAM

in which was involved the honour of truth even more than that of
the author.

In the state of doubt in which he was with regard to his work and
himself, Ozanam had recourse to one of whom he felt surer than he
did of himself. M. Ampere was that excellent and reliable friend.
But he was a wanderer. He was believed to be in Berlin at the close
of 1850, when from Rome Ozanam received on the 4th December
his friendly pressing advice to get on with the publication of his
Civilisation par le Christianisme : " My friend, I stand by your 5th
century. You must first publish that part of the Introduction exactly
as it is in your mind and in your notes. No discouragement, please.
You must look after your health, and take your place in the great
movement for the reconstruction of the history of the human mind,
in which we are all co-operating. You will do your part and God
will do the rest."

Ozanam 's health did not on this occasion disappoint the wishes
and the recommendations of his friend. He reported progress on
the 27th February, 1851 : " You will be re-assured as to the use that
I have made of the winter, since I have been able to preserve two or
three different states of health, to which you attach importance.
In this matter I am deserving of all praise. Thanks to the warm
winds which you have taken care to send us from Italy, we have got on
splendidly up to the present."

The autumn and winter had been mild. In the autumn he had
been able to resume his course in the Sorbonne : in the whiter and spring
he was confident of being able to resume writing. He wrote to M.
Dufieux on the Qth April : " Divine Providence having been
merciful with us as with children, I hope that I shall be able to resume
work on my book this spring." It is indeed in Spring, 1851 that the
Preface to the first volume of the history of the Civilisation anx temps
barbares is dated. The work was to grow by one volume each year
for ten years. The preliminary pages are a master-piece of eloquence,
if it be true, that eloquence is the voice of a great soul.

There was an alternative title to the work : Dessein d'une histoire
de la Civilisation aux temps barbares. The plan was as follows : " I
propose to write the literary history of the Middle Ages, from the 5th
to the I3th century. But in the history of literature I study princip
ally the civilisation, of which it is the flower ; in civilisation itself I
see principally the work of Christianity. All my argument is then

HIS PROMISE TO GOD 331

directed to showing how, on the ruins of the Roman Empire and on
the tribes encamped on those ruins, Christianity constructed a new
Society capable of knowing truth, doing good and realising the
beautiful."

Ozanam describes how that plan formed in his mind. It was born
of the faith of his father, of his mother, and of his sister : of the
faith of his own youth, temporarily shaken, but restored by the hand
of a priest, a master : "I believed ever afterwards with a stronger
faith, and deeply touched by such a grace, I promised God to devote
my life and my strength to the service of that truth which had re
stored peace to my mind."

That work was then the fulfilment of a promise made to God, and
told to men, the accomplishment of a mission from on high, of which
his own youth was conscious and which it had already undertaken.
"Twenty years have gone since then. As I grow in years, that faith
has been better realised and has become proportionately dearer to me.
I have found its worth in great sorrows and in times of public danger.
I pity all the more those who do not know it. In an unseen way,
which strikes me with wonder, God made me especially study Religion,
Law, and Literature, that is, the three things most necessary to the
accomplishment of my plan. I have been able to visit those scenes
that could enlighten me. I have had the happiness of knowing great
Christians, men distinguished in Science and Religion, as well as those
who unwittingly serve the cause of faith by the exactitude and soundness
of their knowledge. Life is however not standing still and I shall
have to seize whatever little youth remains. It is full time to write
and to keep my eighteen year old promise to God."

He would have to refute the Science of negation and of hostility.
He knows that well. Read this beautiful passage : "Gibbon the his
torian visited Rome in his youth. Deep in thought one day he strayed
into the Capitol. Suddenly he heard religious hymns. He saw a
long procession of Franciscans leaving the gates of the Ara Coeli,
brushing with their sandals that roadway, the scene of many triumphs.
Then indignation seized him, and to avenge antiquity outraged by
Christian barbarity he conceived The History of the Fall of the Roman
Empire. I too have seen the Friars tramping on the old roadway of
Jupiter Capitoline. I rejoiced at that sight as at a victory of love
over force. I resolved to write a history of Progress of the very period
in which the English philosopher saw only decay ; a history of civilisa-

332 FREDERICK OZANAM

tion in barbarian times ; a history of mind surviving invasions and
saving the debris of the empire of Letters. I do not know anything
more supernatural, nor any event which proves more conclusively
the divinity of Christianity than the salvation of the human mind
by it."

But he has more than that to say to Gibbon : "His thesis is sup
ported by a great part of Germany. It is that of all sensual schools
of thought, who accuse Christianity of having stifled the legitimate
development of humanity by keeping the flesh in subjection, by post
poning to a future existence the happiness which should be enjoyed
here, by destroying that enchanted world in which Greece had made
deities of force, wealth, and pleasure, and by substituting a world of
sadness in which humility, poverty, and chastity are watching at
the foot of the Cross." That is eternal paganism, characteristic of
our fallen nature ; it is not progress, it is a retrogression to ancient
barbarism. 'The glory of the Church in the Middle Ages is not so
much that she conquered, as that she never ceased to struggle. But
while recognising the permanence of sin, I do not therefore believe
the less in progress in Christian times. I am not dismayed by the
falls or the stumbles that interrupt that progress. Chill nights follow
ing on warm days in May do not prevent Summer from running its
course and ripening the harvest."

The comfort to be derived from the study of history was one of
hope for the times in which he was living, and the lesson to be learned
was work : " I therefore do thank God to-day, for having, in these
disturbed times and amid the terrors of society which would appear
to be perishing, engaged me in studies in which I find peace of mind.
When I turn to more dangerous periods, when I see the perils which
Christian society has survived, that society whose disciples we are,
whose soldiers we should learn to be, I am taught not to despair of
my age. I am not blind to the tempests of our time ; I know well
that I may perish in them and with me my work, to which I cannot
offer a long life. I engage in writing, because I have not received
from God the strength to drive a plough, and I must obey the law
of labour and do my day's work."

It is difficult to refrain from quoting such arresting views. But
if it be Ozanam himself, whom we seek to know intimately, he is to
be found in the melancholy, forceful, prophetic, and resigned finale,
charged with tenderness and sadness : " I do not know what is to be

DANTE AND OZANAM 333

my lot, whether this book will be completed, or whether I shall reach
the end of the page which I am now writing. But I know enough
to devote whatever remains of my life and strength to that work.
I shall continue to discharge my duty of public instruction ; I shall
extend and perpetuate, as far as in me lies, an audience which is ever
friendly, but which changes too often. I shall seek out those who
heard me for a while, and who kept in their memory what I said.
That work will summarise, will recast my lectures and my writings."
" I am beginning at a solemn moment and under sacred auspices.
Dante, having come as he expressed it to the middle of his way of life,
began his pilgrimage into Hell, Purgatory and Paradise, in the great
Jubilee of 1300, and on Holy Thursday. At the threshold of the
journey his heart failed him for one moment ; but three blessed women
watched over him in the heavenly court, the Blessed Virgin, St. Lucia,
and Beatrice. Virgil guided his steps, and, relying on that guide,
he plunged forward bravely on the darksome journey. Alas ! I have
not his great soul, but I have his faith. Like him, in my mature years,
I have seen the Holy Year, the year which divides into two the stormy
and fruitful century, the jubilee year which re-invigorates the con
sciences of Catholics. I desire to make a pilgrimage of the three stages
of history, stretching from the barbarian invasions to Charlemagne
and from Charlemagne to the religious splendour of the thirteenth
century. Dante, a better guide than Virgil, will accompany me to
the end of my pilgrimage, which is on the heights of the Middle Ages,
where his throne is set. Three blessed women will also assist me ;
the Blessed Virgin, my mother, and sister. My Beatrice, too, has
been spared to me on this earth, to sustain me with her smile and her
glance, to raise me from despondency, and to exhibit to me in its most
touching form the power of Christian love, the good works of which
I am to describe."

" Why then should I hesitate to imitate Alighieri and to close this
preface, as he finished that of his Paradise, by placing my book under
the protection of God, Who is praised and blessed throughout all
ages ?"

Such is the close of the Preface. The name of " the great and good
God " is inscribed on the coping-stone of the portico. But would it
be vouchsafed to him to place the finishing touches on the edifice
of which he had laid the foundations ? He answered his vocation, he
accomplished his mission, he crossed the desert following the column of

334 FREDERICK OZANAM

fire, he was on the mountain top in sight of the Promised Land. Would
he enter ? He has just told us his apprehensions, he has also expressed
his resignation. Has it not been said of that Preface, that it was a
literary testament?"

While those serene lines were veiled with sombre presentiment,
another great grief burst on Ozanam. The dear one, whom he had
just honoured and thanked under the name of Beatrice, fell ill. I
read a little later in his correspondence : " The season of Spring, from
which we hoped so much, has been a season of grief. All my thoughts
are now occupied in restoring the health of my wife and daughter
before the coolness of autumn sets in." "One would have to know
Frederick intimately," says his brother, " to appreciate what his
feelings must have been at that time : I remember him, more dead
than alive, saying to me, ' I cannot see Amelie suffer without my
heart-strings being torn." Anticipating the holidays a little, he rented
a country house at Sceaux, where he placed his two dear invalids,
whom he was most reluctant to leave. But that was the last month
of the academic year, and there were very few days indeed on which
he had not to go to Paris for the grinding work of academic examina
tions.

He was joined by Jean Jacques Ampere, who had returned to France
for a short time. The great wanderer divided that time between
Sceaux, where he passed from Monday to Thursday, and Paris, whither
he returned for the business of the Academy. Then he finished the
week at Montreuil near Versailles, staying with his friend Alexis de
Tocqueville.

Ozanam could then enjoy regular society each week, if not each day;
delightful society which he had longed for : " Your friends cannot
pardon you for letting them live the winter without you. The un
usually beautiful weather, which we enjoy, cannot take your place.
Would Naples, which certainly has not the power of changing members
of the Academy into beasts, would it have Circe's powers of making
them forget their native land. I have, indeed, always prayed earnestly
for your happiness ; but yet, I do not like the thought of your being
so happy hundreds of miles away from us."

They resumed literary discussion and revision. Ozanam 's writings,
now ready for the great outside public, required that. He brought
forward, first, the Poetes franciscains that offspring of his, scattered
through the files of the Correspondant : then the Cinquieme Siecle

THE FRANCISCAN POETS 335

which could only be completed with the help of Ampere, and which
would only be a success with the public, through him.

We have referred to the Poetes fmnciscains immediately after
Ozanam's return from Italy where they had received their inspiration.
To appear worthily in book form they were to be collated and ex
panded to double their size and value. In Florence, Ozanam had
found a collection of popular legends of the i4th century, the Fioretti
of St. Francis, little flowers of poetry in prose, garnered with his
harvest of historical research in Italy, " as the convolvulus is gathered
with the ripe corn." Ampere agreed that they should have a place
in the volume of the Poetes franciscains , following the articles which
had now grown into chapters.

Ozanam's sense of probity warns the reader in the preface, that
he puts forward nothing in those legends for the faith of Catholics.
He takes good care not to confound those popular songs, or rhymed
traditions, with Catholic dogma "no more," he says, "than f con
found the drops of dew with the rays of the dawn that accompany
them."

Neither are they to be confounded with the authentic history of
St. Francis, which he believes on the evidence of authoritative con
temporaries. " But poetry grows up side by side with history, bom,
not of falsehood, but of the universal need for belief and admiration."
That is for him the source of the Fioretti.

But those flowers have also their fruit. " Do not charge them with
silliness," protests the moralist. " Those simple, beautiful flowers
conceal a virile doctrine fit for freemen. You may smile, for example,
at the story of the peace which St. Francis made between the town of
Gubbio and the mountain wolf ; you do not perceive a charming
lecture on charity delivered to the just, in favour of poor sinners.
You do not perceive that the wolf, a robber and a murderer, but still
capable of being taught, who places his paw in St. Francis' hand
and who keeps his promise to injure no one, is a type of the people
of the Middle Ages. Though they are terrible in their passions the
Church does not despair of them. She takes the hand of the
murderer in her divine hands, and holds it until she has succeeded in
inspiring him with a horror for blood, which is the most beautiful and
most incontestable characteristic of modern morals."

So Ozanam returns along flowery slopes to his thesis of social
regeneration and the civilisation of the barbarians, passing via

336 FREDERICK OZANAM

Gubbio to Paris, bearing on high the olive branch and clasping in his
charitable and merciful hands the still bloody hands of vagabonds
and insurgents.

Ozanam selected one out of the many Franciscan legends and en
trusted its translation to his wife : " A more delicate hand than mine,"
the preface reads, " has done into French one of the most pious,
touching, and amiable tales of the Fioretti, in an attempt to grip more
closely the simple and natural turn of the old chronicler." M. Ampere
adds : "In our evenings at Sceaux, I was initiated into the secret
of that modest piece of translation. The hand which Ozanam des
cribed as being more delicate than his, was strong and steady enough
to hand him his last drink, and clasp his hand for the last time."

The volume of the Poetes franciscains appeared complete in 1852.
Ozanam lived to see Italian and German translations, while many
French editions appeared in succession.

The second and larger work in preparation, that on the 5 /A Century,
was not completed that term. The Preface was ready by Holy Thurs
day. The first five lectures, revised and recast by the author, had
appeared in the Correspondant under different titles, Progres dans Us
siecles de decadence, £tudes sur le Paganisme. Ampere writes of them
as follows : " The five lectures, now preliminary chapters, form one
of the most elevated and most perfect pieces of writing which that
author composed." His dear friend, Aristarque, to whom he submitted
the work when completely revised, recalls with deep emotion the
reading of it by the enfeebled voice : " It was," wrote Ampere, " in
the summer of 1854 on a seat which I still see, in his little garden at
Sceaux, that Ozanam read his picture of Paganism to me ; those last
days when, though we felt uneasiness on his behalf, we still hid it
from him. May I be permitted to remember those days with grief and
give free vent to tears which are falling on this paper as I write."

It now remained to re- arrange, revise and re-cast the sixteen lectures,
of which the Professor had only shorthand notes in addition to his
own notes. That was more than sufficient work for the strength and
the span of life that remained to him. Ampere was setting out on a
trans- Atlantic journey, Ozanam was himself sent away for the re
mainder of the holidays to take sea-baths. Neither was Sceaux a
place of quiet, rest, or cure : " I counted on finding peace, leisure, and
health, for all my little world : nothing of the kind. The candidates
for Degrees find me out, their weeping mamas force my door open ;

OZANAM IN LONDON 337

and a racking cough gives me rest neither night nor day." Sceaux
was abandoned, and with it the work of revision, for a month. Pendent
opera interrupta, alas ! would the work be ever resumed and finished ?

Ozanam went to Dieppe in the beginning of the month of August
for the benefit of the sea- air. Ampere followed his friends thither.
He was to embark at le Havre for England to see the Exhibition at
the Crystal Palace. He induced Ozanam to accompany him. " Ampere
maintains," wrote his friend, " that the Professor of Foreign Literature
would fail in his obligations, if he did not seize the opportunity of a
cheap trip to the country of Shakespeare. I yield, and am dragged at
his wheel."

But, as we shall see, the two friends did not spend a fortnight in
England admiring the same objects. M. Ampere wrote : " I made a
little trip with him and Madame Ozanam to see the Exhibition in
England. I was more enthusiastic than he over the wonders of
industry. We did not on this occasion seem to be at one in admira
tion, as we had been, when considering Dante and the Niebelungen.
He was of opinion that I admired England too much and overlooked
the Irish unduly. He left me to return alone to the Crystal Palace,
in order to have time to visit the slum tenements of poor Irish Catholics.
He returned in a state of great emotion ; also I suspect somewhat
poorer than he went." We must here reproduce two or three of
Ozanam's letters, which were written on his return from that trip.
They show how that rapid survey of the greatness of England had
been spoiled for him as a man of faith and charity by " two things
which," he wrote, " Englishmen are careful not to expose to view, and
which cursory travellers have not adverted to, when they say that
the English are the first people in the world. Those two things are
the wretched condition of the poor, Pauperism, and the violence of
anti-Papist prejudice, Anglicanism."

Ozanam visited with an English member of the Society oi St.
Vincent de Paul the slums in which Irish workers were huddled together.
" See how to-day Catholic charity," he wrote, " bears alms with a kind
word to those pitiful tenements of indescribable poverty ! What
courage did not our English brothers need to shake the hands of those
down and outs in an aristocratic land, where contact with the poor
declasses and degrades ! Our noble English brothers, overcoming
the double prejudice of nation and class, are doing great good. I
passed a very pleasant evening in their midst."

w

338 FREDERICK OZANAM

" The second cause of grief to him who visits London with any
regard for God's interests and for those of humanity," continues
Ozanam, " is the hatred of the Established Church for Catholicism.
Do not again praise that people," he wrote, " for their respect for the
past ; no people has pushed to such an extent its hatred for the Catholic
past. We believed in their spirit of toleration for twenty years, but the
old Protestant bigotry was only held in leash ; statesmen were always
ready to slip it at the proper time. Then you see its fury." It was the
period of the disturbances caused by the re-establishment of ecclesias
tical titles which were directed against that great man, whom the
Anglican press wished to discredit by calling him The Beggars' Bishopl"

" But Catholicism had more than made amends in Cardinal Wiseman,
and those two other great spirits, Newman and Manning, whose
example won many converts in the very ranks of the Anglican clergy."
Such were Ozanam 's thoughts on his return from a visit to Oxford
University, the cradle of the new movement. He did not fail to pray
before St. Edward's Shrine in Westminster Abbey, which had been
mutilated by Protestant iconoclasts. Overcome with grief at such
desecration, the pious visitor fell on his knees in prayer, in expiation
for what that ingrate people had done, who knew not their own saints.
He earned the contempt of the crowd of bystanders who, doubtless,
took him for a madman.

What Ozanam sincerely admired in England, and in the English
people, was respect for law, love of country, the colossal power of in
dustrial labour, and the fundamentally religious character of the people
as evidenced by their fidelity to the Lord's Day of rest, from one
end to the other of the most hard-working country in the world. As
for the Exhibition in the Crystal Palace, it was not in that fragile and
ephemeral building, a mere tent, that he sought the secret of British
greatness. There were too many things of luxury for the rich, too many
causes of envy and covetousness for the poor, too much pandering to
artificial needs, too much uniformity and monotony in that worldly
spectacle, ever bringing the same things before our eyes. " Having
seen that epitome of human power after sixty centuries I said to
myself : Can man not do anything better than that ? Is it the last
word in human genius to work gold on silk, to mix flowers of emeralds
with flowers of diamonds ? I was delighted to see as I came out,
green lawns, fine clumps of trees, sheep grazing in the fields, anything,
in fact, that was not a manufactured product."

LAY APOSTOLATE 339

Ozanam, on his return to Dieppe, expatiated on the charity of St
Vincent de Paul at a meeting of the local Conference of the Society.
His visits and his eloquent words were not soon forgotten. Twenty
years later a baker could repeat his addresses to the descendants of
Ozanam, who fled to Dieppe during the siege of Paris.

Sceaux, where he is to be found again in October, had not a Con
ference. When Ozanam had gathered together a number of suitable
prospective members, it appeared that the town had no poor. " What
matter," he said, " material assistance is only a secondary object of
the Society ; sanctification of souls is the principal aim. We shall
work for that." A nourishing Confraternity of the Blessed Virgin was
established for young girls at Sceaux through the labours of the
Conference. The Brothers for their part carried out a lay apostolate
among the parishioners, whom they brought back to the faith and the
practices of religion. One will not be surprised at that when it is
stated that one of the members was the illustrious and holy Augustine
Cauchy, in whom Ozanam found again the same piety and wisdom,
which he had formerly found in the great Ampere.

That gave him the greatest spiritual consolation during the closing
period of those holidays. His strength did not improve. He wrote
to Ampere on the 23rd October : " I am doing a little work, but very,
very slowly, and with great difficulty. I cannot scrawl over a single
page, while you out there cover one hundred miles. I am finding
peace and calm here in the country at Sceaux. The leaves are going
but peace abides."

That peace lay in himself. He had found its source in the moral
virtues which beautified his domestic life, his friendships, his charitable
activities. We shall be edified by the contemplation of that complete
life, before we close this work with the story of a two years agony,
crowned with a death which was still more beautiful than his life, a
death which is wonderful in the eyes of men and precious in the sight
of God.

340

CHAPTER XXVI.

HIS INTIMATE LIFE.

FAMILY . — RELIGION. —CHARITY . —FRIENDSHIP .

Ozanam described to Ampere in a letter from Sceaux, dated 22nd
October, 1851, his domestic happiness darkened, it is true, by a cloud
which was growing, but behind which he saw and blessed the sun of
the will of God : " My state of health render many duties and pleasures
impossible ; but I admire the dispensation of Providence, which will
not permit us to acclimatise ourselves here below. I had done every
thing to make life comfortable ; and you have greatly helped. You
know whether I have made my home happy ! God does not will
that I should take root in that happiness. He leaves me the joys of
the heart, he sends me the pains of the body ; I bless Him for my lot.
But I am praying Him not to prolong the trial. I look after myself
as well as I am able, or rather I let my kind friends do that for me."

In a letter to M. Dufieux on the i6th February, some months later,
his sufferings appear solaced by the contemplation of the happiness
of those near and dear to him. He wishes that his friend could
witness that happiness : " Besides the place which you have in my
daily prayers, I should wish to see you form one of our fireside group,
as you led me to expect you would. You would find my domestic
circle happier than ever, because all are in good health. I am the least
well in the home, and yet I can, not without fatigue, almost deliver
my lectures. I thank God for such favours and am resigned to the
suffering which He sends with them. One of my greatest griefs is
that, having studied deeply, I believe I have some ideas, without the
strength to reproduce them. My friend, may God grant you domestic
happiness which makes up for many ills ! Give me your hand that I
may clasp it as an old friend."

He described his " little daughter Marie who was playing in the
garden, the sounds of whose merry voice reached him ; and Amelie

THE FAMILY GROUP 34I

by his side, cheering him with her kindly face." The loving father
surrounded the child with every care, not overlooking anything which
could amuse and entertain her, and showering on her the graces of his
mind and the affection of his heart. Thus on a July day, when Marie
was indisposed owing to the great heat, he brought her a little fan on
which was written the following verses :

Prends-le pour remplacer les deux ailes legeres
Cue portent dans le ciel les cherubins tes freres
Et qui te defendraient les ardeurs du soleil,
Ou te rafraichiraient d'un mouvement pareil.
Mais, lorsque Dieu te fit, petit ange sur terre,
Pour essuyer les pleurs dans les yeux de ta mere,
Je demandai pour toi tous les dons precieux
Dont I'Esprit- Saint revet les anges dans les cieux :
Pour toi je demandai leurs graces immortelles,
Leur foi, leur purete, tout — excepte leurs ailes—
De peur qu'il ne te vint quelque jour le desir
De retourner la-haut sans nous, et de t'enfuir.*

We shall see other verses dedicated to the mother, of a still more
lofty sentiment and heavenly charm.

Between the figures of the mother and daughter, Ozanam's corres
pondence introduces the sweet personality of the grandmother. She
had been stricken down by the double loss of husband and son.
Ozanam mourned for them with her : " My beloved mother, you have
become by your affliction more venerable and more lovable than
ever, for I see you now with your head crowned with thorns." After
Theophile's death : " My dearest wish is to fill the place rendered
vacant by his death .... Am I not a son ? More than you think,
more than I can say. But why have I not the virtue, courage, humility
and holiness of him who is no more ?" Ozanam had insisted on her
coming to Rome, to her daughter and himself, after that sad bereave
ment. 'To join us under the sacred arches, to receive here the
blessing of the same Pope who blessed him in his illness, that is not
disloyalty to his memory." Ozanam took charge of the family affairs
after the father's death. He writes about his wife, daughter, and
himself as follows : " My dear mother, we shall endeavour to soften

*Take it in place of the two airy wings which thy brothers, the cherubim, in
heaven possess ; those wings would ward off from thee the heat of the mid- day
sun, or with a simple movement would cool thee. When the good God made
thee, a little angel on this earth to dry thy mother's tears, I prayed that the
Holy Spirit would bestow on thee the precious gifts of the angels, their immortal
grace, their faith, their purity, everything — but their wings — fearing lest the
desire to return to thy heavenly home should visit thee and that thou wouldst
then take wing from us.

342 FREDERICK OZANAM

your exile by giving you, if not days, at least some hours of consolation.
You will see how well we love you, and darling Mary, now able to ap
preciate your tenderness better, will put her little arms around your
neck and dry your tears with kisses."

Religion made a sanctuary of that home. Ozanam was a man of
prayer ; all his letters offered that incense. He remembered his
friends in prayer and asked to be remembered by them in return.
He became a more frequent Communicant, approaching the Holy
Table now on Sundays and Feast-days. He had a habit of reading
for half-an-hour every morning a chapter from holy books, marking
the passages which had struck him, in order to hold them the better
in his thoughts during the day. He called it, his " daily bread." It
was generally the Gospels which furnished the reading. He read them
in the Greek text, filling his mind with the words and virtues of Jesus
Christ. His day consisted in translating them into action. He did
not understand piety to be other than the loving imitation of Our Lord,
and the faithful observance of His law.

His life was illumined by supernatural views of a very high order.
We read the following in his letters : " It is from Heaven that our eyes
will find the light and the strength which we stand in need of, to
discharge the duties and provide the needs of this life. The very
best way to appreciate mundane affairs at their true value and to
weigh them calmly and dispassionately, is to view them from on high
and to regard them as things that do not concern us. The
reality of life is on high. What have we here on earth but our good
works, which are to accompany us, and God, Who visits us ?"

The visit of God in Holy Communion threw him into transports of
faith. He wrote as follows : " In the inexpressible sweetness of Holy
Communion and in the transport which it causes, there is a power
for conviction which would enable me to embrace the Cross and defy
unbelief, should all the world have abjured Christ."

His sentiments for Jesus Christ were those of the most complete
surrender, the liveliest confidence, the most filial tenderness. He
gave Him his life, accusing himself of his earlier anxiety for the future,
of his present anxiety for his health, offering to Him with his life, as
we shall see, all that makes life worth living for, happiness, love,
renown.

He aimed at doing the will of God in his duties as a citizen, as a
Christian, as a husband and father ; but with a very lofty and pure

VISITATION OF THE POOR

343

intention : " Our Lord makes us ask in His prayer that His will be
done on earth as it is in Heaven. Not as it is in Hell, where it is done
of necessity, nor among men, where it is often done with murmuring
but as it is m Heaven, with the love and the joy of angels."

Ozanam was a hard judge of himself. The world thought him
great, he thought himself little ; the world thought him good, he thought
himself unworthy. He believed that he owed his position to hard
work and the grace of God ; he had no opinion whatever of his genius
it was not a source of strength, but of weakness. " His conscience
does not spare him/' He describes himself as being irresolute, in
decisive, emotional, blown about by every wind of vain impression
and uneasiness, clouding all his happiness. He does not regard him
self as worthy of happiness. His brother wrote : " Finding him one
day sad and depressed, I enumerated the many reasons he had for
being happy. That is true, he answered. It is precisely because I
am so very happy, that I fear that some misfortune is about to happen
to me." He always decided against himself in a matter of doubt ; it
cost him more to do so ; he thought it was the surest course— which
is not always true— because it meant greater self-sacrifice, and that
sacrifice was an act of love.

That heart which was severe towards himself was a brother's heart
towards his neighbour. Besides the immense family of St. Vincent
de Paul, all of whom he embraced in his charity, Ozanam had his own
poor, the poor of his own Conference, whose visit and service were a
religious act for him. He always removed his hat on entering their
poor homes : " I am here to serve you." He never preached to them.
Having given what he had to give, he sat down and chatted about
anything that could interest them.

The visit was instructive and beneficent to himself. He relates
that one day, when in a depressed frame of mind, something inspired
him to visit his poor. lie was quite another man when he returned.
What were his imaginary troubles compared to the terrible reality
of such sufferings ! What a lesson he had received ! He said one
day in Florence : ' ' How often has it not happened that being weighed
down by some interior trouble, uneasy as to my poor state of health,
I entered the home of the poor confided to my care ; there, face to-
face with so many miserable poor, who had so much more to complain
of, I felt reproached for my depression, I felt better able to bear sorrow,
and I gave thanks to that unhappy one, the contemplation of whose

344 FREDERICK OZANAM

sufferings had consoled and fortified me ! How could I avoid hence
forward loving him the more !"

When the poor came to his home he did not keep them waiting at
the door, but took them at once into his study, where he gave them a
comfortable chair and behaved towards them as if they were visitors
to whom he wished to do honour. 1 1 was a holiday trip for him to go
and wish a happy New Year to his poor, and to distribute little presents
to their children. Pere Lacordaire relates the following incident.
One morning in 1852, Ozanam mentioned to his wife the case of a
family who were driven to such extremities that they had been obliged
to pawn the last article that remained of their former comfort. He
said that he would like to restore it to them that day. His wife dis
suaded him from doing so for good and sufficient reasons. Ozanam
was downhearted in the evening when he returned from his
official duties. He looked askance at his daughter's piles of toys and
would not touch the chocolates which she offered him. It was easy
to see that he was sorrowing for the good deed left undone in the morn
ing. His wife relented and encouraged him to do as he had first
wished. He set out at once to redeem the article of furniture, saw it
himself into the house of the poor people, and came back home per
fectly happy.

He had been more than once deceived by unworthy clients of his
charity. " An Italian whom he had helped, and for whom he had
obtained a situation in a business house, betrayed the confidence
which he had placed in him. Having fallen again into destitution,
he again sought Ozanam's assistance. Ozanam lost his temper,
turned him out of the house and told him not to dare to return. But the
unfortunate fellow was scarcely at the bottom of the stairs when
Ozanam's conscience smote him. He told himself that it was a very
bad thing to drive anyone to despair, that he himself would one day
need God's pardon, which he had just refused to grant to one in His
likeness and image. He snatched his hat and ran after the Italian,
whom he found walking aimlessly in the Luxembourg Gardens."

According as Ozanam advanced in the esteem of the academic
world, his pleasure at finding himself amid the working classes in
creased. That was apparent in the Society of St. Francis Xavier, and
in the Workmen's Club of the Crypt of St. Sulpice, to which he was
ever faithful. It was during those later years that he composed for
them a Vie populaire de Saint Eloi, the patron saint of metal-workers. j»

I

PROGRESS OF THE SOCIETY 345

It is in a simple, beautiful style, the glorification of Christian work.
He says at the close of it : " If all cannot advise princes, redeem
captives, evangelise infidels, as St. Eloi did, all can serve God by
prayer and our country by work. All can do honour to the work
room by probity and sobriety, by the charity which respects masters,
unites companions, protects apprentices. All can help the poor if
not with money, at least with a good deed or a kind word. Lastly,
if all cannot be great, all can become saints."

Ozanam rejoiced at the great impetus which the recent appointment
of M. Adolphe Baudon as President-General had given to the Society
of St. Vincent de Paul. It also enabled him to efface himself the more.
What a Council that was, at which were sitting by his side such men
as M. Leon Cornudet, Vice-President ; M. de Barante, Secretary ; M.
Cochin and M. Louis de Beaudicour, Vice-Secretaries ; members such as
Messieurs Bailly, Gossin (junior), Le Prevost, Henri de Riancey, Lauras,
Armand de Melun, de Raincourt, de Champagny, Ferrand de Missol ;
and a little later Messieurs d' Indy, Cauchy, de Malartic, Eugene de
Margarie, etc. Ozanam nominated Messieurs Lallier and Le Tail-
landier honorary members of the Council. That was a link with the
early days of the Society.

The year 1851 with which we are dealing, saw 247 aggregations of
new Conferences in the new and the old hemispheres. The Report said
of the progress in England : " It has been stated that the Exhibition
in the Crystal Palace has obliterated the sea which separates the two
countries. But of all the overhead or submarine wires connecting
them, the most electric is undoubtedly that of charity. That wire
can unite all and everything ; it links hearts together, it links Heaven
and earth together."

It was not alone love for the cause of charity, but still more his
concern for the progress of Catholic Faith that interested Ozanam
in the currents of thought in the different European States, particularly
in Germany, which was just then much agitated by sects. I read in a
letter to M. Bore, dated 28th September, 1851 : " When you are
writing, please tell me what is thought in Bavaria of the late religious
agitation in Germany. Is there any serious danger for the Catholic
Church in the rantings of wretched people, who seem, to us far away,
to be so ill-qualified to impress a great nation."

" When it is reported that twenty or thirty parishes have gone over
to the Ronge or de Czevsky schisms, is that to be taken to mean entire

346 FREDERICK OZANAM

parishes, or only some ringleaders, who claim to represent the
parishioners? How very difficult it is to establish the faith solidly
in German minds ! The troubles of the Church are indeed great in
this century ; and poor France, who is thought so badly off, is not
the worst of all."

He acknowledged with thanks some months later the receipt of some
articles taken from the Bavarian Press on the religious state of the
country : " I read with very great interest the account of the ter
centenary celebration of the Council of Trent. Such accounts ought
to be reproduced in the Catholic Press. The piety of the good people
of the Tyrol makes us blush for our lukewarmness and should inspire
us with greater zeal in the service of God. Too often we regard our
selves as having discharged all our obligations towards Him, when
we have used up a few pens or a little ink."

M. Ampere, who was Ozanam's most intimate friend in his closing
years, speaks of him as follows : " Those, who have read his corres
pondence, know the incomparable grace of his mind : they will also
have noticed his invariable courtesy. He was never rude. Gaiety
of spirit was indissolubly allied to seriousness of mind." Another
friend who had known him all his life, says : " Nobody enjoyed a good
joke better. He was not too high-brow for a good laugh, that great
pleasure in life ; even when suffering made that impossible, any
pleasant incident produced a playful rail}-." His humour sparkled in
little society verses, with which he entertained his guests and holiday
companions. Such a piece was a longish poem of one hundred and
fifty verses, which he forwarded in the name of M. de La Villemarque
and in his own, to the address abroad of their mutual friend, M. Ampere.
It commemorated in Homeric metre and mock-heroic style, a wrestling
match which he had witnessed at some Breton festival.

His amiable character was not without its moments of impatience
characteristic of Frenchmen : " Stop that or I shall lose my temper !"
and he proceeded forthwith to lose his temper. But the first fit over,
he became overwhelmed with confusion and begged pardon humbly
and frankly.

On the other hand he could deliver a sharp reprimand with apposite-
ness when occasion demanded. During his tour in Brittany he found
himself one day in the diligence face to face with a young soldier in a
brand new uniform. The latter was pestering a young lady sitting
next him with his attentions. Ozanam, on tenter-hooks, first called

HIS FRIENDSHIPS 347

his attention to the respect due to women, which is the foundation
of French courtesy. The young cad did not pay any attention to that
view of the case. He replied impertinently that that did not concern
him and that he did not recognise the right of anyone to lecture him.
That is exactly where you are mistaken, young man, replied Ozanam,
that is precisely what I am employed by the Government to do.
The fancy young foot-soldier was non-plussed. What then could this
gentleman be, who wore decorations and who was an official of the
Government ?

It can be readily understood how admirably such a mind, character,
and heart were formed for friendship. A whole chapter could be
devoted to Ozanam's numerous friends. They were family, literary,
academic, political, home, Parisian, and foreign. All his friendships
were, in a sense, religious ; that characteristic is the key to them
all. The oldest friendships were the best. Francois Lallier was,
and always continued to be, the strong religious spirit to whom the
friend unbosomed his weakness and his tenderness. He could not get
on without him now more than at any other time. He thought of
bringing him to Lyons to be near himself : " What a pity it is that you
are not a Lyons man. That is all that is wanting in you." In response,
Lallier paid two memorable visits, one during the vacation of 1837
and one towards the close of 1839. Ozanam was at Sens in 1840 for
" a charming visit of a day which he would have been glad to have
made a month." Back in Lyons he gave an account of his visit to
their old friends in the Society of St. Vincent de Paul : " You are ever
dear to them. I could not satisfy the enquiries of La Perriere, Arthaud,
Chaurand. All would have been delighted to have been on the trip.
There was great joking about your son ; they pictured him already
clothed with the paternal gravity. They all send you congratulations."

When in 1842 Lallier lost a charming daughter, Julie, in the flower
of her youth and promise, Ozanam wrote him a consoling letter wet
with tears : " My dear friend, God visits those most whom He loves
best." That is the opening phrase. He then congratulated him on
the faith which sustained him in such a trial. " My dear friend, it is
of faith that, Christian families, marriage, paternity, all those sacred
ties exist in order to people Heaven. You had already one saint in
Paradise, your mother ; you will have now an angel in your daughter.
Between them the}' will keep your place for you. If you find that you
have too long to wait to join them, remember that thirty years will

348 FREDERICK OZANAM

soon pass ; you and I know what that means." Three pages full
of similar holy sentiments.

There are eighty such letters to Lallier, in which the human and the
divine are blended harmoniously. In 1848 Lallier went up for election
as a Deputy in the Department of Yonne, as Ozanam did in that of
the Rhone. Their professions of faith are alike : " I find in your
address the expression of my own feelings and my own thoughts, the
picture of the republic which I will and that which I will not have."

Three years later the question presented itself to Lallier whether he
ought to remain at Sens or apply for a judicial position in Paris, where
his son was about to begin his studies. Ozanam's reply was that the
consideration which should outweigh all others was not domestic
interest, nor advancement, nor friendship, but the better service of
God, of the Church, of good works. Lallier remained at Sens.

Lallier was godfather to Ozanam's child : " Pray for your little god
daughter, not forgetting her parents. A sacred bond unites us hence
forth in the sight of God and man." On the other hand Lallier's son,
who was resident in Paris in the Poiloup pension, was like one of the
family in Ozanam's house. A reference to him is found in the following
letter, dated i4th April, 1852 : " To-day, Wednesday in Easter Week,
we have your Henri with us after a long Lenten captivity. He is
growing in mind and body, is always gentle and does not scorn to
take part in the games of our little daughter. We are about to take
them with us now to the Champs-filysees. The weather is glorious
and if we succeed in locating Punch and Judy, the children will have
touched the pinnacle of earthly happiness."

The bond of union between Ozanam and Janmot was the memory of
of their first Holy Communion together and of the sermons of the
Abbe Noirot. Ozanam wrote to him in 1849 : " The identity of our
views, after so many years' separation, brings us closer together than
ever. I have not yet told you how 1 enjoyed your all-too-short stay
with us at Versailles. Your long absence was forgotten, and our
strolls in the Park brought back to memory our promenades in Lyons
and the many hours which we spent together after Sunday Mass.
Alas ! There are so few of those now in our ranks, who made their
first Holy Communion with us, or, who were with us in College."

Janmot, the painter, had conceived the grandiose idea of a work
of spiritual art which would be entitled : Le Poeme de lame. He
communicated that concept to his friend who replied : " That will be

MORE FRIENDS 349

the work of your life. I can see you obsessed with that. beautiful
conception, each succeeding year realising it in part, until you will
present it finished to the world for the honour of God and the edifica
tion of man. May the same grace that inspired the idea, preserve
your strength to carry it on to completion."

When Ozanam fell ill in Paris, Janmot was the most assiduous of
friends at his bedside : " I shall never forget the friendly anxiety with
which you came each day of my illness to feel my pulse and to shake
my hand with the grip of an old school comrade, and a fellow First
Communicant. My wife and relatives are indebted to you for the
portrait of one whom they all love."

" Farewell, my dear friend, may the guardian angel of great
inspirations guide your brush ! You are so good that you deserve
to be very happy."

Ernest Falconnet was more than a friend ; he was a brother. Read
the following letter which Ozanam wrote to him as early as 1831 :
' Yes, my dear friend, we are brothers in faith, in studies, in age, in
projects, brothers in blood, and in one and the same future. Our
lives shall be twin-lives." It was to him that Ozanam confided his
first student impressions of Paris. When Ernest launched out into
the world Ozanam wrote to him as follows : " The world is a file of
steel which wears out many young lives ; do not expose yours to it.
A Christian, a believer in God, in humanity, in country, in family,
never forget that your life belongs to them, not to yourself ; that it
would be a thousand times better to languish in obscurity for half a
century, edifying others with a spirit of resignation and doing some
little good, than to be intoxicated for a few brief months with worldly
pleasure, and then die in its delirium."

When their paths separated, Ernest took that which led to a place
in the Court of Appeal. The friendly relations became strained, but
did not break. In July, 1851, Ernest suffered a great sorrow in the
loss of his father " whose example had been the light and the honour
of his life." Frederick hastened to write him a letter full of the re
collection of childhood, of friendship, of Christian hope : " My dear
friend, let us pick up the links of the chain connecting us with one
another and with those whom we have lost. ... I know only one
consolation for such sorrow, it is that God has taken what He had
given. In taking them to Himself, He compels us too to take the road
to Heaven. Blessed be our sainted mothers who first taught us to

350 FREDERICK OZANAM

tread that path ! When they taught us as children to believe, to hope
and to love, they were building unwittingly the staircase by which
we should climb up to them again after we had lost them. Happy
those who know how to live with the dead ! It is frequently the best
way to discharge one's duties towards the living."

Because there is not any other consolation to offer, we find it again
occuring in a letter of condolence to M. Felix Nourisson. He was a
Christian philosopher, he had been a student of Ozanam's, and was
later to fill a Chair in the College of France. He had just lost his
father, and Ozanam wrote to him as follows on the 2nd of April, 1851 :
' My dear friend, do not forget that He Who afflicts you, is also a
Father." And closing the letter : " May Our Lord crucified assist
you. He, even He, on the Cross would seem to be separated from
His Father, crying aloud : Father, Father, why hast Thou abandoned
Me ? He understands your afflicted cries, He is blessing you because
you are good and because you are in sorrow. In virtue of those two
titles you are powerful with Him. Pray for me."

M. Dufieux was one of the dear friends in Lyons of whom Ozanam
wrote : " Never think that I am growing accustomed to doing without
my Lyons friends, my old and true friends. Nothing can take their
place, not even the friendships which I have been able to form in
Paris." He makes mention of the days when Dufieux introduced
him to Lamartine at St. Point : " Was not that the starting point of
our friendship ?" He now invited him to come and see him in Pans :
" Come, I should enjoy nothing better than an hour with you in the
beautiful Luxembourg avenues which are at my door. We can talk
of yourself, your children, health, difficulties and hopes." He would
also speak of his trials, for Dufieux had passed through the crucible of
suffering. Ozanam admired him because he had come out stronger
and better, and had transformed the torrent of afflictions into a river
of good works that would never run dry. " Share that wealth of
charity by offering up to Our Lord for me some of the blessed things
that you have done. I know that none of your suffering is lost, for
you have plaited a crown with it for the life to come. It is in that I
should follow your example, for I do not yet know how to suffer.
Pray for me."

His friends were warned to avoid any appreciation which was not
strictly true : " I know of course," wrote Ozanam, " that friendship
is half blind ; but you see too clearly, and you have too much intelligence

FRANKNESS 35I

not to appreciate my shortcomings." Friends prefer frankness
between one another : " There is no true friendship without frankness.
Rest assured, therefore, that you do me a real service in opening your
heart to me. One of two things will happen ; either, your fears on my
account are groundless, when you will have afforded me the oppor
tunity of dispelling them ; or you are right, as you will generally be,
and your warning will enable me to correct my many faults. Those
words of the psalmist asking God to ' correct him through the voice
of a friend/ have always appealed to me."

The most cordial unity existed between the two Vice-presidents
of the Council-General, Ozanam and Cornudet. Ozanam admired in
Cornudet "loyalty in character, business grasp, and efficiency in
matters of State, which made him indispensable to the Government."
He admired still more his rare Christian virtues, prudence in counsel,
and a kindness of heart which was equal to any sacrifice for a friend :
" Cornudet is one of those men in whose company everything is clear
and genial," he used to say.

Cornudet had furnished a report to the State Council on the very
delicate matter of the confiscation of the property of the Orleans
family. He reported courageously against confiscation, and was
promptly dismissed. That anticipated injustice was received with
serene calm : " What do you think of the reverse that Cornudet has
suffered ?" Ozanam wrote to Lallier. " He behaved splendidly under
such misfortune. The letter which he wrote me on the matter was
marvellously simple, calm, charitable, and in every way worthy of a
great Christian. There still remain, thank God, models to do honour
to our age." Ozanam wrote him again two years later from Pisa :
" Here, in this wonderful Cathedral radiating faith, beauty and love
I have prayed with all my might for justice for him who has experienced
the injustice of men."

The editing of the Correspondant created another circle of friends
for Ozanam. His letters merely mention Edmond Wilson, de Carne,
Edmond de Cazales, Dr. Gouraud, Charles Lenormant, Frantz de
Champagny, Melchior du Lac. The personality of Theophile Foisset
overshadows all. Ozanam recalls that they prayed together at the
same altar at Bligny. " Ah !" he cried, " would it not be indeed
difficult for Christians to forget one another when they have enjoyed
such moments together." He wrote also to him : " Allow me to
express my very warm gratitude to you for the affectionate freedom

352 FREDERICK OZANAM

with which you unbosom your heart to me. Everything in it moves,
attracts and edifies me. Please continue such a charming friend
ship." He moderated his own judgment on the events of 1848 in
accordance with that of Foisset : " I cannot bear the thought of a
serious difference with a mind and a heart that I love as you know."
Why had he not had such a friend in Paris ! "We should have ex
changed our thoughts and our anxieties, we should have spoken little
evil of our neighbour but much good of Divine Providence, to Whom
I give thanks for many things, but Whom I can never sufficiently
thank for having given me such a friend as you !"

That great and humble Friar, Pere Lacordaire, requested Ozanam
on one occasion to let him know frankly what defects people found
in his preaching. Ozanam was dumbfounded, and at first, declined.
But that was to refuse justice. He had a fit of remorse the same
evening, Monday, the 2Qth September, 1851. He offered his excuses
and made reparation in the following letter : " My dear Reverend
Father, you asked me a question this morning as a friend, and I
answered it as a stranger, as one whom you would not allow to tell
the truth. My conscience is not easy at the answer which I have
given. I am too much attached to you, and too warm an admirer of
your preaching, not to repeat observations which I have heard made,
as you ask for them and as they may tend to the good of souls."

He proceeds to mention them : " The fondness for strange words,
the startling nature of some comparisons, the too frequent use of
profane allusions in a sacred subject, a touch of the old Romanticism,
a little carelessness in the printed text of sermons which are destined
to be immortal. . . . For, my dear Reverend Father, the great
congregation in Notre Dame is insignificant in comparison with the
number of the absent, and of the future generations who must hear
your word." Ozanam was thanked.

I should be glad to be able to quote also something from Ozanam's
correspondence with Viscount de La Villemarque, M. Eugene Rendu,
etc. It would add to the variety of shades which the sentiment of
Christian friendship received from that pen, which was so delicate
and so rich in tones and colours. But I must hurry on to come to
him, who was the friend par excellence, particularly in the closing
years, M. Jean Jacques Ampere, in order that we may see the fire of
Christian zeal, the radiating splendour of love, shine forth in all their
glory.

ANXIETY FOR AMPERE 353

It was about that time that M. Ampere was setting out from London
for Canada and the United States. Ozanam exhibited uneasiness
at that departure. The reasons for it were deeply-rooted Jean
Jacques, who was very much a man of the world and always' on the
move, who was very open to the scepticism of the German schools
among whose masters he counted personal friends, had not inherited'
as we have already said, the religious spirit of his illustrious father
in its entirety. His honest and sincere soul felt the want. Notwith
standing the consuming activity of his life, the conceits of his imagina
tion, the cares of the world, and the curious taste for enquiring of
his vast intelligence, the faith, which he did not possess, made its want
felt and left no rest in a heart which was made for belief. He admired
it in Ozanam, whose example was for him a silent Gospel. Ozanam
had kept silence. But could he continue to maintain that silence
when his friend was about to put the ocean of space and many months
of time between them, without any assurance that they would ever
see each other again. Therein lay the deep-rooted cause for that
sorrow, which Ozanam had forced himself up to then to conceal. He
could no longer do so. On the gist of August, before Ampere left
London for New York, Ozanam wrote him an admirable letter from
Dieppe. It must be quoted almost in full.

He first recalled the many remarkable acts of kindness of his friend ;
he proceeds then to ask leave to speak to him of an important matter
with the freedom of a brother, but with the respect and the deference
due to an elder brother

" Are you astonished, my dear friend, at the sadness which I feel
at your departure ? I could not tell you verbally wherein the cause
of it lies, because I did not wish that you should b~ obliged to answer
me. If I am writing to you now it is because, if the outpouring of my
heart is indiscreet, the seas that are bearing you to America will
obliterate all recollection of the indiscretion. When we shall see each
other in six months time, my letter will be forgotten, and nothing of
what will have displeased you will remain to cloud the joy of your
return."

" My dear friend, you suffer much fatigue which is not without
danger to your health ; please excuse my uneasiness. You are seeking
out new interests to occupy your mind, and you are making a tour of
the world for that purpose. Yet there exists one sovereign interest,
one Good capable of attracting and of filling your great heart. I fear,

354 FREDERICK OZANAM

my dear friend, I fear, perhaps unjustly, that you do not think enough
of that ? You are a Christian at heart, by the blood of your incom
parable father ; you discharge all the duties of Christianity to men ;
must they not also be discharged towards God ? Must we not serve
Him, must we not live in continuous communication with Him ?
Would you not find infinite consolation in such a service ? Would
you not find the security of eternity ?"

The subject was opened up, the conscience awakened. The letter
continues : " You have given me reason to think more than once that
such sentiments were not strangers to your heart. Your research
has brought you into contact with so many distinguished Christians ;
you have known so many eminent men who closed their lives in
Christian peace. Such examples invite you, but the difficulties of
belief hold you back. I have never ventured to talk over such matters
with you, because you have infinitely more knowledge and wisdom
than I."

" Let me, however, say that there are but two schools, Philosophy
and Religion. Philosophy has its inspirations. It knows, but does not
love, God. It has never caused a single one of those loving tears to
fall, which come to the eyes of a Catholic in Holy Communion, Whose
incomparable sweetness and consolation is worth the sacrifice of life.
If I, poor and weak as I am, have known that sweetness, what will
it be with you, whose character is so lofty and whose heart is so good.
You would find in it the interior evidence before which all doubts
flee. Faith is an act of virtue and therefore an act of the will. We
must will to believe, we must surrender our soul, and then God gives
light superabundantly."

Then this simple remark, this frightened cry, which fears many
things that find no utterance : " Ah ! my dear friend, if you should fall
ill some day in an American city without a friend at your bedside,
remember that there is not a spot of any importance in the United
States, to which the love of Jesus Christ has not drawn the steps of a
priest, to console the Catholic traveller "

The reply was not long in coming ; two days later Ozanam received
the following letter from England : " My very dear and good friend,
I do not wish to lose a minute in thanking you for your letter. Offend
me ? You would not be my friend if you had felt otherwise ; in any
case I would have known that you felt so, even if you had not written.
Forgive me if I do not answer your arguments. Believe, that the

AMPERE AND OZANAM 355

sight of Catholic orthodoxy in a mind like yours is for me a sermon
more eloquent than any speech."

Then a postscript : " I came across the little cripple yesterday at
Waterloo Bridge and I gave him something from us four."

Those few lines written in haste and posted in London were the last
written by J. J. Ampere from Europe. The next letter, dated the 2nd
October, was post-marked Montreal. It ushered in a journey of two
thousand miles, which he has described under the title Promenade
en Amerique. But he never omitted to write to Ozanam who, on his
part, exhausted all the charm of his mind, his friendship and his
loyalty to bring him back to France.* Those two men, those two
brothers were never to see one another again. When Ampere returned
to Paris, Ozanam was about to depart, very ill, never to return.f
He is to be found henceforward wherever the doctors order him for a
cure, if that is to be, for " the Hand of the Lord has touched him."
He is first in the Pyrenees, at Eaux-Bonnes, at Biarritz, and on to the
" land of the Cid " in Spain. He is to be found soon afterwards, for
the winter, on the warm shores of the Mediterranean, at Nice, Florence,
Pisa, San Jacopo. So many stations along the Way of the Cross, at
which he falls, rises, and falls again ; each station bringing him nearer
to Calvary, showing him nearer to God on the sublime heights of
sacrifice and holiness. We have now to follow his whole being up
the heroic final ascent, his mind, his heart, his inspiration, and his
love, to see the most wonderful spectacle that is to be seen, the close
of a beautiful life, still more beautiful in death.

*His uneasiness continued. He confided to M. de La Villemarque", their
mutual friend, who shared his fears, that " the dear traveller astonishes and
terrifies me. I am always afraid to learn that he is in some villianous town at
the edge of woods, suffering from some terrible attack and tended by an American
doctor. I seem to see him friendless, and hundreds of miles from a priest.
Let us pray for him. His friends must pray for him. Do not forget him above
all in the evening family prayer to God, in which we took part last year with such
edification and consolation."

f Ampere continued to seek the truth. Fifteen years later he wrote to a
friend as follows : " I persevere in the search for truth in good faith. Nobody
desires it more sincerely than I, and I offer up this prayer each night to God,
' Enlighten me.' " He reached the desired goal when, on the 27th March, 1864,
he was brought suddenly face to face with sovereign truth and infinite mercy.
M. Guizot related to the French Academy in feeling terms his consoling end.

356 FREDERICK OZANAM

The present Life of Ozanam suggests another volume, complementary to this,
a biography of each of his chief friends and fellow- members in the early days of
the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, in Paris and in Lyons. Some have already
been done : Lamache by M. Paul Allard ; Lallier in the Semaine religieuse de
Rouen, 1887 ; others in notices which are not for sale. The Lyons colony and
its first urban Conferences, would have a place of honour in such a volume.
M. Prosper Dugas' life has been given by his son. What an escort of honour
would not the following names furnish for the name of Ozanam, Baron Chaurand,
Dr. Arthaud, Paul Brae de La Perriere, Henri Pessonneaux, Dufieux, Rieussec,
Antoine Lacour, the painter Louis Janmot, etc. I have barely noticed them
en passant, but they are still remembered in a city which has been edified by
their example and benefited by their service. M. le Baron Chaurand was the
most notable of Ozanam's fellow- workers among the group of Lyons students
in the foundation of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul. He was born in the
same year as Ozanam, 1813. He was a Barrister- at- Law at the Royal Courts
of Lyons in 1 836, one of the founders of the Lyons Gazette, a large landed pro
prietor in Vivarais and Lyons, president of the agricultural and vine growing
societies in Lyons. He was a Deputy for Ardeche in the National Assembly,
and introduced a Bill to provide for Sunday as a day of rest. He was devoted
to the Count of Chambord, an ardent defender of the Holy See in the organisation
of the Pontifical Army, in which his two sons enlisted under the command of
General de Charette. He was a founder and promoter of Conferences of the
Society of St. Vincent de Paul with his three brothers-in-law, Antonin, Vincent,
and Felix Serre, even in the little parishes of Vivarais. He was a man ever
ready to engage in any good work down to the date of his death, which oc
curred on the 6th October, 1896. It can be written of him that there was not,
during a period of sixty years, in Lyons or its neighbourhood, any religious,
charitable, economic, or social work, to which he did not give active, able and
generous support.

Louis Janmot is not such an outstanding personality, but he is a man of extra
ordinarily attractive mind, apparently very akin to Ozanam, his fellow First-
Communicant. He was a disciple like Ozanam of the Abbe Noirot in Lyons,
and sat by Ozanam's side in the first Conference of the Society of St. \ incent de
Paul in Paris. Janmot, who was a pupil of Ingres, belongs as a painter to the
school which is honoured by the name of H. Flandrin, also from Lyons, Amaury
Duval, Signol, Mottez, Paul Baize. But it was especially on the early Italians
and mystical Franciscans that he modelled his work. Lyons possesses, or did
possess, two of his frescoes of The Last Supper, one at the Hospice of Antiquaille,
the other at the Church of St. Polycarpe. He was also represented by a charm
ing triptych in the Cathedral representing the Blessed Virgin and the Infant
Jesus between two angels. In Paris he decorated the old Chapel of the Fran
ciscans in the Rue Falguiere and the stoning of St. Stephen at St. Etienne du
Mont, frescoes of a lofty Christian sentiment and masterly execution.

The School of Painting which he inaugurated in Lyons took precedence over
the State School ; Lyons remembers it still with pride. But it was in the privacy
of his studio that he showed his Christian genius in a series of one hundred great
paintings entitled Le Poeme de I'dme. Only the sketches for that work are extant ;
they have been edited by Thiollier. It is indeed the poem of his own soul, annota
ted by a volume of mystical poetry exhibiting a delicate imagination. The volume
concludes with these strophes inscribed on the Mortuary Card of his pious death :

O Seigneur, O Jesus, comment ne pas vous suivre ? Pour qui vous a connu
yos sentiers sont si doux ! Celui qui pres de vous un jour s'est senti vivre. Peut-
il vivre un seul jour sans vous ?*

*O Lord Jesus ! How could one fail to follow in Your footsteps ? Your paths
are so easy to one who has had the happiness to know You. Can one, who has
felt the joy of living near You for one single day, become reconciled to living one
single day without You ?

357

CHAPTER XXVII.

ILLNESS.— THE PYRENEES.— SPAIN.— PILGRIMAGES.
THE LAST COURSE OF LECTURES— THE PYRENEES— NOTRE DAME DE

BURGOS — "THE LAND OF THE CID" — THE CORNICHE ROAD.

1852.

The stay at Sceaux, and particularly the sea air at Dieppe, had
improved Ozanam's health, at least temporarily. After an enforced
extension of holidays, he felt himself bound, towards the end of
December, to resume his lectures in the Sorbonne. His brother, the
priest, endeavoured to dissuade him : " No," he replied, " I have a
duty to perform. What would you say of a soldier who refused to
go into the breach for fear of death ? I ought to be at my post. I
shall die at it if necessary." He assured his doctors that inaction
would be more fatal to him than sickness. " I am a worker and I
must do my day's work." But his day's work was done, and the hour
was approaching when he would receive his wage.

Warned, but not cured, he ascended his Professorial Chair. But
if we are to credit one of his letters to Ampere, he looked after himself
a little : " I am careful to incur less fatigue in speaking. I do not
seek to be impassioned when there is no emotion. I remain seated,
and the audience does not object. Some pretext is occasionally
sought for applause in order to stir me. But the young men are
mostly quiet and studious.

The short winter term of 1852 was passed in this manner. Carried
away by his desire for work, he wrote on the I2th February : " Although
my strength is slow in returning, I am nevertheless getting on much
better." He even attempted to resume the revision of his Cinquibne
Siecle : " But, as soon as I attempt to do any work, my terrible weak
ness is apparent. I do not know how I shall finish, if I do not regain

358 FREDERICK OZANAM

some strength But God Who sent me the sorrow of ill-health,

leaves me the joys of the heart. I bless Him for that lot." The pen
drops from his fingers, yet he writes again : " One of my greatest
griefs is that having studied deeply, I believe I have some ideas,
without the power to reproduce them." It was in that anguished
state of mind that the end was to find him.

Easter vacation provided a period of repose. He was delighted
with the prospect of going with his wife and child to Lallier at Sens
to spend Easter week. On Easter Sunday he wrote as follows : " My
dear friend, the Holy Communion in Notre Dame this morning was
magnificent. Nearly two thousand were present, praising and blessing
God and joining in the holy mysteries. It is indeed the truth that
the merits of that Sacrifice are never exhausted, and that the Saviour
is present to the faithful in His Church to-day, as in the early days of
Christianity. I did not forget you, my dear friend, at the altar, and
I am sure that you did not forget me."

He did not go to Sens. He was down with fever almost immediately
after Easter Sunday, and had to endure sufferings that put his virile
courage to the test. He was obliged to take to his bed, and it was from
there that, at the last moment, he requested the Dean to notify the
postponement of his course of lectures. M. de La Villemarque, who
came to see him, gives an account of the pathetic scenes which took
place at his house and in the Sorbonne.

When the students read on the notice-board that they must give
up for the time being the idea of hearing Ozanam, there was first a
feeling of disappointment which turned quickly into one of dis
satisfaction. " Indeed the Professors take things easy and make no
difficulty about dropping lectures, for which they are well paid."
They ignored the fact that the master was ill.

Ozanam was much upset when he heard of it. The lecture had been
written out. He did not hesitate : " I shall deliver it," he said ;
" the honour of the profession must be upheld." As the time ap
proached for the lecture he got up out of his bed, in spite of the pro
tests of his friends, the tears of his wife, and the command of his
doctors. He was driven to the Sorbonne where he got out leaning
on a friend's arm. He appeared quite unexpectedly in the lecture-hall,
emaciated and white as a sheet.

Seized with remorse and pity, the students gave him a splendid
reception. Having obtained silence, he said in a deep, clear voice :

THE LAST LECTURE 359

" Gentlemen, our age is charged with selfishness, and professors are
stated to be affected with the general complaint. Yet, it is here that
we wear out our health, and use up our strength. I do not complain,
our life is yours ; we owe it to you to the last breath, and you shall have
it. As for me, if I die, it will be in your service."

He delivered his lecture with unparallelled eloquence and power.
It would not be possible to describe the enthusiasm and emotion of
the audience. There was a presentiment that they were listening to
him for the last time. When he had risen from the chair, and was
leaving the hall amid the congratulations of his friends, one of them
shook his feverish hand saying : " You were wonderful." " Indeed,"
said Ozanam with a smile, " now I must see about getting a night's
rest."

He did not get that night's rest. He took to his bed at once, show
ing symptoms of the most alarming character. It was indeed a
farewell which he had just given to an audience who had loved and
acclaimed him for twelve years.

Lacordaire's fears were aroused when he heard of what had occurred.
He was then in his monastery at Flavigny, to which he had betaken
himself, after giving up the pulpit in Notre Dame and residence in
Paris. He wrote to Ozanam " scolding him for his imprudence,
ordering him to confine himself absolutely to his lectures for some
years to come, and to use the rest of his time for travel and relaxa
tion." Was that not even too much ? He continued, " Remember,
my dear friend, that you are one of the small number of Catholic
writers, who have done honour to the Church in our country by their
talent and character ; you have kept yourself free from the ex
cesses and tergiversation which trouble us in so many others. Do
stay with us. Alas ! we pass all too quickly, and even if life is a poor
thing for itself, we must yet cling to it for the sake of others."

The illness grew worse. " I have been at death's door," he wrote
afterwards. "Pleurisy was running its course violently and would
have carried me off, but for the skill and attention of my brother, the
care of my family, the prayers of my friends, and the mercy of God."
His physical strength failed completely after that attack, but neither
his charity nor his apostolic zeal, as will be clear from a letter dated
i6th June, 1852. It is a monument to both.

While he was ill, Ozanam had had a visit from one of his former
fellow-students on a mission of charity. The latter writing to him,

FREDERICK OZANAM

recalled their former discussions when as he said, " Young, and loving
truth, we chatted together with Lallier about things eternal." But
the friend admitted that his former doubts still tormented him, and
he confided his trouble to his dear comrade who was happy and en
lightened.

Though he rarely left his bed, and his room not at all, Ozanam
risked everything for the salvation of his friend. His reply is nothing
less than the demonstration of the fundamental Catholic principles.
It opened by insisting on the importance of the element of mystery in
the untathomable depths of the infinite. He answers the objection
of cruelty raised against the dogma of eternal punishment : " Do those
who regard that dogma as inhuman, argue so because humanity is
dear to them ? No, but because they fail to realise adequately the
malice of sin and the justice of God." Ozanam insists further on the
proof, which his own experience furnished him, of Christianity:
" through which had come to him the faith of his youth, the light and
strength of his mature years, the sanctification of his domestic happiness
and consolation in his suffering." It is here that occurs the passage
which has been already quoted : " There is, in the inexpressible sweet
ness of Holy Communion, and in the tears which it brings, a power
for conviction which would enable me to embrace the Cross' and defy
unbelief, should all the world have abjured Christ."

For ten years Ozanam had been examining the history of Christianity
independently of that interior evidence. Each step in that examination
confirmed his conviction. So much for the proof from History.
Then the Social proof : " I have proved to my own satisfaction that it
s to the Gospel that we owe Liberty, Fraternity and Equality ; that
the greatness and the happiness of society in the mass, as of individuals,
depend on it. You do not perhaps sufficiently appreciate, my dear
friend, to what an extent that belief in Christ, which is represented
as extinct, still actuates humanity ; or how much the Saviour of the
world is still beloved ; or how He continues to raise up examples of
virtue and devotion not surpassed in the early ages of the Church."

Then the following ardent, personal supplication : " Ah ! my friend,
my dear friend, let us not lose ourselves in endless discussion. We
have not two lives, one to seek truth and another to practise it. There
fore, Christ does not oblige us to look for Him ; He shows Himself
living in Christian society around us ; He is before you, He is inviting
you. You will soon be forty years of age, it is time for you to make up

TO EAUX-BONNES 361

your mind. Surrender to your Saviour, Who is calling you. Give
yourself over to belief in Him as so many of our friends have done ;
you will find peace in that. Your doubts, like mine, will be dissipated!
You are so little short of being an excellent Christian ; merely an act
of the will ; to will to do so, is to believe. Wish for that ; wish for that
at the feet of the priest, who will bring down the blessing of Heaven
on your wavering will. Have that courage, my friend, have that
faith. Will your salvation, be a Christian, be happy. That is the
prayer of your friend for you."

I am assured that the wish was granted. How could the urgent
prayer of a breaking heart be refused, a heart which even here sends
this farewell : " I am so little better that I am to be sent to the
springs in the Pyrenees. I shall pass the autumn by the seaside and
the winter probably in the South."

Three weeks after the date of that letter, on the i6th July, Ozanam
left Paris, as soon as the state of his health permitted, not without
regret. " It is a great trial for me to see my work suspended and my
career interrupted, at a time when I have to canvass for membership
of the Academy. But we must learn how to make sacrifices when
God demands them, and to ask Him for the grace to do His will on
earth as it is in Heaven."

The journey from Paris to Eaux-Bonnes was made by easy stages
in ten days. Ozanam made a stay at Orleans, Tours, Poitiers, in which
he was interested from a religious point of view. Afterwards he visited
the South, from Bordeaux to Pau, and never failed to pay a visit to
the Conference of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul in each city.

The establishment of a Conference at Eaux-Bonnes was his chief
occupation during his month's stay there. It would be, as he visualised
it, a rallying-point for members of the Society from all parts, who
would come there for treatment. At the same time he initiated the
idea, and canvassed for the foundation of a hospital for the sick poor
who would be obliged to resort there for the same purpose. Each
local conference would bear its share of the travelling expenses of the
sick poor to Eaux-Bonnes, while the well-to-do patients there would,
of their charity, undertake the maintenance of the sick poor while
in the hospital.

" Here I am then at Eaux-Bonnes," he wrote on his arrival to M.
de La Villemarque, " wandering between two mountains, drinking
deep of the sulphur-springs. To be quite frank, my dear friend, I

362 FREDERICK OZANAM

prefer your cider. Then I climb the rocky hills after the goats to
digest that beverage which my stomach rejects. I bring all my clan
with me. When we shall have finished camping on these altitudes,
we shall take the sea-baths at Biarritz. Then I am to be exiled in
the South for the winter."

He describes elsewhere the grandiose charm of that slope of the
Pyrenees : "One never wearies of admiring the beauty of the light
gilding the rocks, the delicate outline of the mountain ridge, and,
above all, the streams bejewelling the mountain side, purling and limpid.
The Alps themselves have nothing comparable to the Cirque of Gavar-
nie. Imagine, not a Cirque, but the apse of a cathedral, eighteen
hundred feet high, crowned with snow, furrowed with cascades, the
foam of which arises and hangs over the rocks in the warmest tints
of colour ; the walls are as if they had been hewn out of the rock.
When clouds are floating overhead they appear to be the drapery of a
sanctuary : should the sun shine, nothing could make that edifice more
resplendent. One would say that it was begun by angels and inter
rupted by the sin of man."

In the course of this "truant" trip through the Pyrenees, the pil
grimage to the shrine of Betharam took place, and there Ozanam prayed
to the Virgin of the Golden Branch : " That Golden Branch," says the
legend, " was presented by a young girl who fell into one of the moun
tain torrents. She made a vow to our Lady, and found immediately
at her hand a branch to which she clung, and by which her life was
saved. I am clinging with all the might of my soul to that Branch
which we call the Comforter of the Afflicted and the Refuge of Sinners."

At the springs Ozanam met what was better than beautiful scenery,
beautiful souls. I do not know if he could possibly have found
two more congenial companions than the two young, pious, and dis
tinguished priests, the Abbe Perreyve, one of his own students, and
the Abbe Mermillod, future Cardinal Bishop of Hebron, who was then
Vicar of Notre Dame de Geneva.

The Abbe Perreyve was the chosen disciple of Lacordaire, of Pere
Gratry, and of Ozanam. He too was sick unto death, he too made the
offering of his life to the Divine Master. Sad and sweet visions of
the future gave to their conversation the charming characteristics of a
joint sacrifice : " When the sky was clear," the Abbe Perreyve relates,
" we set out early for one of those smiling walks surrounding Eaux-
Bonnes. It was generally a crawl. We sought there the evening's

OZANAM AND PERREYVE 363

calm. We left for home when the sun was quitting the purple tops
of the Pic de Gers, what time the fresh vapours of the Laruns were
beginning to rise. When at the last corner of the road we saw the
roofs of the houses at Eaux-Bonnes it was already night. The moun
tain crest appeared sombre and clear cut against a starry sky : the
moon rose silently above the fir-trees over the hill-tops, and the breeze,
regular as the breathing of a sleeping child, swayed the woods gently.
At such an hour, in such beautiful surroundings, our souls ascended
naturally to God. We spoke little, but the long intervals of silence
made me feel that it was rather a time for prayer ; a prayer, not of
words, but of silent contemplation in the presence of God ! Oh, dear
Lord, Oh, dear Master ! I give Thee thanks for having granted me such
moments I"

When his leave was up the Abbe Perreyve was called back to Paris.
Ozanam accompanied him as far as Bayonne : " That hour in the car
riage," writes the young priest, " was the last which I was to pass with
him on this earth. God permitted that he had that presentiment.
He spoke during that hour of grave matters relating to himself, to
me, to the Church ; of hopes and fears for the future. He spoke to
me as if for the last time and I listened conscientiously."

" When we reached the high road for Spain and the towers of the
Bayonne Cathedral were drawing near, he changed his conversation.
He told me that he was sick unto death, and that we should not see
each other again. I shared his fears, but with more hope, that is
to say, with more illusions, I argued in good faith against his sad
forebodings. But he persisted, and spoke to me of his approaching
death with a certainty which overcame all my reasons for hope. When
the carriage stopped at the post-chaise which was to take me to
Paris, he held my hand for a long time. We got down : the moment
for parting had come. Embracing me closely, he said, ' Henri, say
farewell/ My heart was breaking, but no tears came. I followed
him with my eyes as long as that was possible : a turn in the road
cut off the view. I never saw him again."

The Abbe Mermillod was the same age as the Abbe Perreyve, and was
then in the flower of his talent, his charm, and his reputation. He had
appeared for the first time in the cathedral pulpits of France to appeal
for funds for the building of the Church of the Immaculate Conception
in Geneva. The principal promoter of that undertaking was, with
him, Dr. Dufresne, of Geneva, President of the local Conference of

364 FREDERICK OZANAM

the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, and son in-law of M. Foisset. The
young Abbe had also come to Eaux-Bonnes for the benefit of his health,
which had been impaired by his activities in preaching in Paris and
elsewhere. He has not left any record of his heart-to-heart talks with
Ozanam. But one of Ozanam's unpublished letters, written to that
friend, recalls a walk in his company to the Bridge of Spain, as leaving
" one of the most charming impressions which he brought back with
him from the Pyrenees." His whole soul, humiliated, tried, but
patient, submissive and generous, is in the following letter : " Pray
for me, Father and dear friend, for illness does not do good to my
soul : it makes me more irritable, selfish, and self-centred than ever.
I welcome suffering, if it is to sanctify me : but God grant that it may
sanctify me."

This religious disposition appears in a still more Christian light in
the following letter, dated the I4th September, to the Abbe Maret :
"God wishes to save me, and grants me further time to become better.
May He be praised and blessed. Whether His design for me is to
give me back my health, or to make me do reparation for my sins by
prolonged suffering, may He be equally praised and blessed ! Let
Him only give me courage and send me the suffering that purifies.
May my cross be that of the penitent thief. Continue, Reverend
Father, to be so good as to remember me in your prayers. Give me
a good place in them, just as the best place at the fireside is given to
the invalid ; he may not deserve it, but he needs it."

Those letters are written from Biarritz. Much to my regret, I
am unable to reproduce here Ozanam's description of those coasts,
and, in particular, of Biarritz, "one of the most beautiful places
in the world." He enjoys the scene not without remorse, con
demned as he is to spend many months in idleness at a time when
not a single day was to be lost. " My heart does indeed find occupa
tion, but my mind none. When the end of the day arrives with
nothing done, my idleness fills me with remorse, and I do not seem to
deserve the bread which I am eating, nor the bed in which I
am resting."

Biarritz did him good. Ozanam attributed that in part to a visit
from his brother Charles who tore himself away from his patients
for three weeks to look after him : " He came to me as a rainbow ap
pears after a downpour of rain, a symbol of hope." He also expressed
his great consolation at seeing his wife and child happy and well and

RESIGNATION OF DUFIEUX 365

also " at being able to devote some time to the education of my daugh
ter, Marie, which I have not been able to do hitherto/' But what
was to become of them ? He gives way to " the sad thought of my
ruined career and of my family exposed to all the difficulties of a dark
future. My imagination is filled with melancholy at that picture.
I grow very sad and I stand in greater need than ever of your kind
prayers. Faith does not suffice to save me from those gloomy fore
bodings. Not indeed that religion is powerless over my poor heart,
it saves me from despair. But I cannot control myself altogether, I
am not Christian enough. I do not think, however, that I offend God
in thus unbosoming myself to a friend who is stronger than I, and
who can lend me his aid."

It was to Lallier that he wrote, and he continues : " I have regained
some strength here by the seaside. But I need much more, before I
shall be cured. Winter is coming and I fear that my restoration to
health will be postponed to next summer, if indeed God wills that I
shall ever be myself again. This separation leaves me desolate. I
cannot grow accustomed to the thought of not seeing for five or six
months more, you or Cornudet, or excellent Pessonneaux, or any of
the others whom God has given me as travelling companions on this
earth."

M. Dufieux had also been the confidant of the invalid's uneasiness
for the future of his family. His reply is too beautiful not to find a
place here : " My well-beloved Frederick, my own strength is ebbing
away. I have just had another severe illness, and I have scarce suffi
cient strength left to write these few lines. I often thought of you
in my. recent illness ; I made enquiries about you, through a friend,
from the doctor at Eaux-Bonnes, who has good hopes of you. As
to the interests of your family, leave all that to God ; He will take
charge of it .... My dear friend, what should not I have to
fear on that score if I did not know that Divine Providence is at hand ?
I have seven children, all of tender years. My whole fortune consists
of twenty-three thousand francs, made by grinding work which has
worn out the remnant of my youth, my health, and my life. I have
neither relatives nor friends, nor inheritance, nor place, nor favour
to expect from any quarter whatever ; nothing but my own work
to 'depend on, and my strength not enough to complete it. Yet, my
wife and I sleep easy on the pillow of poverty. I know that God's
hand will only abandon me and mine, when I shall first myself have

366 FREDERICK OZANAM

loosed the grip. Courage, therefore, my good friend, health will
return prosperity will come with it, genius and glory will survive,
that will be the inheritance of your family. Mine ? My dear Frederick
I can tell you this : I have never been unhappy except when I wavered
in my trust in God. On the other hand, as often as I have come back
to Him in humility and submission, like a little dog that had been
punished by its master, I have felt the caressing touch of that all-
merciful and all-powerful Hand."

Ozanam found a flourishing Conference in existence at Bayonne,
filled with the early spirit of the Society, indefatigable in its good work.
Its president was Dr. Franchisteguy, who became a friend of Ozanam 's
later years and to whom he said : " When I think that it is only within
the last seven months that you have come to know me, and that you
bestow on a newly-found acquaintance such hearty friendship, I con
clude that it is only Christian charity which can work such wonders."

Ozanam was glad to be living amidst a Christian people who afforded
him the joy of seeing that faith is not extinguished in France. A
visit which he paid to the Community of the Cistercian Penitents
was an edifying sight : " but recently founded in the Landes, at the
edge of the ocean, about five miles from Bayonne in the middle of an
immense desert of sands, where the dunes rise and fall like the
waves of the sea. There suddenly appeared in that desert an oasis
such as the Thebaide in Upper Egypt, two rows of cabins of straw
and twigs, and between them a chapel with its thatched roof. Around
were all forms of cultivation, maize, potatoes, madder, castor-oil plant,
etc., to which a belt of poplars afforded protection against the cold
winds from the sea, and against the drifting sands. It is at once
the work and the dwelling of heroic penitents.* The story of their
recent foundation is still more supernatural than even the sight itself.
Young Dr. Ozanam has given an account of it. "As for Frederick,'"'
he wrote, " his heart, sensitive to every moral impression, was so moved
at the sight that his physical health derived benefit from it."

To be so close to Spain without actually entering on Spanish terri
tory was a trial and a temptation. He felt better one day, and taking
his wife and his brother with him, made his way as far as Fontarabie,

*Dr. Ozanam, Le pays des Landes, une Thebaide en France, 8vo. 1857 —
See also La vie de I' Abbe Cestac founder, by Monsignor Puyol. I had the privilege
and the happiness of hearing the very edifying account of the foundation of
that work and of the edifying lives of the penitents from the lips of the holy
Abbe Cestac, whom I met at Buglosse in 1862.

IN SPAIN 367

Iran, St. Sebastian, so that he could return triumphantly after having
passed a day on Spanish soil. It was the 22nd October, with a tem
perature more suitable to July. M. Eugene Rendu has given an ac
count of the trip, in which the following reference is made to the piety
of the people : "The good Spanish people pray very piously. I
noticed neither coldness nor extravagance. On Sunday, quite a num
ber received Holy Communion, particularly young people of manly
bearing, wearing the beautiful red sash. They received, with all the
devotion which is to be found in Notre Dame or St. Sulpice."
Ozanam found in that experience reasons for hope in the assistance
of the "God of ruin and of resurrection."

The dash into Spain tired him very much, but did not cure him of
the growing desire for a full excursion into that country of glorious
memories. After a few weeks of enforced rest, the beautiful dream
of our ancestors returned — A Pilgrimage to St. James of Compostella.
"How many times," he wrote to M. Eugene Rendu, "while sitting
at the fireside with Madame Ozanam, and replacing a half-burnt
log, have I not set out for the Holy Land ! On one side I reached
in my thoughts the Columns of Hercules, and on the other, the shores
of Palestine. Yet, here I am in Bayonne, a city half Spanish, where
many of the signboards of the shops are in the pure tongue of Castile,
and I fear to push on to Seville."

He received permission from his doctor to make an attempt to
reach Burgos. He set forth with his wife and child on the i6th Novem
ber, at the beginning of the season, described in the following words
of the Spanish proverb : "Six months winter, six months hell." It
rained incessantly during the thirty-three hours' ascent to the high
plateau on which stands the Mother of Kings, 2,100 feet
above sea level. Ozanam found consolation for the inclemency of
the weather and the loneliness of the route in the following thought :
" How many poor French and Italian pilgrims walked in tears, begging
from St. James the remission of their sins, the cure of an invalid,
the delivery of a captive ! Through what perils did they not advance
when Saracen bands scoured the country and floods swept away bridges
and paths !"

About three o'clock in the afternoon of the i8th November, the
towers of Notre Dame de Burgos caught the eye. One hour later
he was on his knees giving thanks in the magnificent cathedral already
in gloom. He passed almost all the next day in the very heart of the

368 FREDERICK OZANAM

Spanish Middle Ages, alternately recalling, honouring, and praying
the Queen of the place in the following ardent terms : "Oh ! Holy
Virgin, my mother, what power you have ! What admirable mansions
your Divine Son has had erected in your honour, in exchange for
the poor little hut of Nazareth ! I myself know many, from Our Lady
of Cologne to St. Mary Major, and from St. Mary of Florence to Our
Lady of Chartres. . . . Here the Castilians, laying aside the
proud sword for the trowel and chisel, have worked continuously in
your service for three hundred years, in order that you should have a
worthy dwelling place in their midst ! Good Virgin, through whose
intercession such miracles have been wrought, obtain something also
for me and for mine. Strengthen the habitation of our tottering bodies.
Build up to Heaven the spiritual edifices of our souls."

We shall not further describe the visit, because it has all been told
by Ozanam himself, and published after his death, in the masterpiece
entitled : Un Pelerinage au pays du Cid, which constantly occupied
and consoled the closing days of his life. He seemed to have a new
life again at Burgos : " Notwithstanding the inclement weather," he
stated to his friends, " I had never felt better, and the only fault to
be found with the three days at Burgos was that they were too short :
three days only, spent with the Campeador, with Ferdinard Gonzalez,
the great Count of Castile, with the great Isabella ! I had at Burgos
the whole epic of sacred and heroic Spain. I saw three hundred
years of history in a stay of three days. I brought from there noble
thoughts, beautiful descriptions in embryo, pieces of poetry, notices
of monuments, ballads and legends. Amelie found old song-romances,
she bought mantillas, she won grace from Heaven for herself and for
me. I have only to thank God for giving me the strength to make
such an entertaining and useful trip ; and to thank my dear wife,
who had all the trouble and anxiety."

In that hurried trip to Burgos, Ozanam did not forget to visit the
Conference of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul. Proud Catholic
Spain, rich in ancient works of Catholic Charity, had been slow to
admit one which was modern and foreign. St. Joseph's in Madrid
and St. Joseph's in Burgos had been the only Conferences so far aggre
gated to the Society. The end of that same year, 1852, witnessed the
aggregation of many others, Callela, Holy Cross of Madrid, Santander,
Huesca, etc. Ten years later, out of two thousand Conferences
outside France, Spain numbered five hundred.

BIRTHPLACE OF ST. VINCENT DE PAUL 369

Ozanam was back in Bayonne on the 24th November. He had
thought of first returning to Paris in order to further his membership
of the Academy of Inscriptions : " But what would be the use ? That
Academy will be able to get on for a while yet without me. I could
console myself easily for the loss, did I not fear that my light was about
to be extinguished/' In a few lines later : " I know candidates who
were brought into the Academy, merely for what was expected from
them. Cannot as much be expected of me ? Besides, may I not
leave a vacancy soon ?"

Winter was coming on ; where would he pass it ? The choice lay
between Bayonne, Spain and Italy. Italy won. "Our beautiful
Italy/' Hippolyte Fortoul, his former college chum in Lyons, had
become Minister of Education under the Second Empire, and had re
mained a loyal friend. To break the ennui of complete rest, he entrust
ed Ozanam with a little work to do in Pisa on the Origines des Re-
publiques italiennes, for which he was to receive out-of-pocket expenses.
Ozanam would not leave Bayonne and the Pyrenees without paying
a visit to the birthplace of St. Vincent de Paul : " I do indeed owe
that to the beloved patron who saved me in youth from so many
dangers, and who has showered such unexpected blessings on our little
conferences. His native village is situated about 20 miles from
Bayonne, a short day's journey. We came first to the village of
Pouy, which is now named St. Vincent de Paul, after its glorious
son. We saw the old oak under which St. Vincent, the boy shepherd,
took shelter while herding his flock. That fine old tree is now held
to the soil only by the bark, which is eaten into with age. But the
branches are superb and, even at the advanced season when we were
there, the foliage was beautifully green. I saw in it the type of the
foundations of St. Vincent de Paul, which have no apparent bond of
union with earth, but which nevertheless triumph over time and grow
strong during revolution."

A later letter stated : "The Cure of St. Vincent de Paul had a branch
of the venerable oak cut for us, which I am sending on to the Council
General. Amelie made a collection of leaves, twigs, and acorns,
which she intends to share with you. Marie was delighted to see in
the fields sheep, that must of course be the great-grand-children of
those which the saint used to herd/'

" We resumed our journey from Pouy for Notre Dame de Buglosse,
two miles further on, through a frightful country, uncultivated and

370 FREDERICK OZANAM

intersected with marshes. The old sanctuary is made venerable by a
statue of the Virgin Mary which attracts many pilgrims. We finished
our pilgrimage there on Saturday morning, and had the consolation
of receiving Holy Communion, asking God for the cure in which we all
three are concerned. It is a very long while since I was so moved."

What affected him most, however, was an incident which he related
in a letter to Lallier : " I believed myself cured at that time, and
it was rather for the purpose of thanks than for petition, that I
made that pilgrimage. However, without wishing to attach any
supernatural importance to anything that concerns me, I admit that
one incident made a very deep impression on me. I went to Confession
to a holy priest who does duty at the chapel of Notre Dame, and
whose simplicity and great charity recalled at once our St. Vincent
de Paul. Now, that man of God, in the remarks which he made,
spoke only of sufferings to be endured patiently, of resignation and
submission to the will of God, however hard it might be ! ... Such
language surprised me very much, as I was feeling well." That took
place in the confessional of the little chapel ; and the priest knew
nothing of his penitent, whom he had never seen.* "At all events I
felt somewhat unwell on my return from Buglosse ; and the feeling
of illness was aggravated by the farewell visits which I had to make
at Bayonne. I fell back into my former state of intense weakness."
The time for departure had come.

Ozanam set out early in December by the mail-coach which con
veyed him rapidly to Toulouse, where St. Thomas Acquinas and the
Conferences of the Society detained him two days : "Our good little
Society of St. Vincent de Paul is not idle anywhere," he wrote. It
was the same story at Montpellier. "Thus the work of God is being
done amid human vicissitudes." Madame Soulacroix joined them
at Marseilles for the rest of the journey which was to finish in Rome,
where her son was : " My wife's isolation was ended, and hearts were
brought together that were desolate asunder."

Marseilles offered him " the delights of Capua" in the hospitality
of M. and Madame Magagnos, who were near relatives of the Soulacroix.
There was a great family gathering at Christmas. He had also been

*I am inclined to think that the holy priest was none other than the Abbe
Cestac, who was at that time undertaking the construction of the new sanctuary
of which Ozanam speaks. I met him there after its completion in 1862, and
spent the best part of a day with him, to my great edification. Supernatural
powers in the direction of souls were attributed to him.

FROM TOULON TO NICE 371

nourished that morning at the Divine Table : " We spent the Feast-
day together," he wrote. " I remembered you in my prayers at the
altar, and ask you to do the same for me ; you will find that, with the
help of your prayers, we shall have a good journey. We are starting
to-morrow for Toulouse which we should reach in five hours. We
shall place ourselves under the protection of Notre Dame de la Garde,
whom we visited a short time back."

What was most noticeable about Ozanam at that time was his
gaiety : he was the first to enjoy everything. "God has indeed heard
my request : Redde mihi laetitiam salutaris tui."

He was enthusiastic about the naval greatness of Toulon. " The
Mediterranean squadron was there to receive us. We paid a visit
to the giant of the fleet, le Valmy, carrying 300 guns and 1,100 men.
I have seen nothing more imposing than that floating giant, with
its obedient thunderbolts and its disciplined courage." Toulon, on
the other hand, tired him. He spoke of swollen feet, frequent spasms
of pain, and dilation about the heart, which he had had before and
which had to be treated with digitalis : " I hope that this little check
will not last, and that God may have sent it to me as a New Year
gift, so that I may say : Volo quomodo vis, volo quandiu vis !"

The pleasure of seeing, contemplating, admiring, feeling, blessing
everything from Toulon to Nice was balm to his spirit : "A special
carriage took us to Cannes for the night, the following day to Nice,
passing, on the way, Frejus, the Esterel mountains, Antibes, a delight
ful route fringed with olive trees and orange trees, all laden with their
golden fruit, and palm-trees waving over a Roman ruin in the distance,
at a chapel gate, or by the side of some modern villa.

"All that is magnificent, but it is as nothing to what is seen when,
near Antibes, the ridge of the maritime Alps suddenly bursts on the
sight and shuts out the horizon, their peaks covered with eternal snow,
their bases bathed in the shimmering sea. Then, and then only, are
the Pyrenees and the Coast of Biscay forgotten. All creation is
represented in that scene, the majesty of the glaciers and the luxur
iance of the tropics ; forests of olive trees, and oleanders flourishing
in the dried-up beds of streams, aloes and cactuses as in Sicily ; belts
of lofty palm trees waving a foliage worthy to find a place in the
welcome to the King of Kings on Palm Sunday."

That domestic trip had pleasant interruptions at intervals along
the route. Ozanam wrote : "Of all the products of Provence the best

372 FREDERICK OZANAM

are cousins, both male and female. Amelie found all hers in Marseilles."
In Toulon another band of Magagnos ! "At Cannes we found M. Coste,
an old cousin, almost blind, a dear relative of our fond mother, with
whom we celebrated the arrival of the New Year. Indeed, my dear
friends, I part company with the year of grace 1852, which had separ
ated us, without regrets, and I welcome 1853, which will bring us
together again."

After remembering his mother, then comes the thought of his father :
" We are to set out to-morrow morning at four o'clock from Nice for
Genoa by the splendid Corniche route. Ah ! How all that road
recalls the memory of my father ! How often he spoke of it ! It
was the scene of his early campaigns, during which he had often fired
on the Piedmontese mountaineers. I often think of him and of you
with him."

The crossing on the "Marie-Antoinette" from Genoa to Leghorn
was very rough. A downpoar of rain on their arrival drenched the
travellers through and through. Ozanam arrived on the loth January
at Pisa, suffering from rheumatic pains and weakness, but still sound.
Full of hope, he saluted Italy.

He went immediately to the Cathedral. "After a month's journey,
fatigue, and but little rest in France, ' he wrote, " I cannot describe
your friend as a Hercules ; he has had his share of sufferings. But
now that I am in port, I have hope and I thank God. That is what
we did in the admirable Cathedral of Pisa, which radiates faith, beauty,
and love."

373

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 I3th 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 philosophic, 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.

374 FREDERICK OZANAM

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 invita
tion : " 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 distinc
tion. 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 30 th 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," * he wrote, " a young Canon, whose

* Though traces of the tendency were evident for some centuries previously,
Josephism is identified with the name and reign of Joseph II of Austria (1741-
90) . It was the development of the craving of secular princes after a territorial
Church, and in its operations was not unconnected with Jansenism and Gallic-
anism. 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

THE SOCIETY IN FLORENCE 375

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 num
bers 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,

called by Frederick the Great, treated ecclesiastical institutions as public depart
ments 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 Religions fond. The fund failed to bear the charges that
naturally fell upon it and the scheme collapsed.

376 FREDERICK OZANAM

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 un
punished. 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 Abbe 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

LIFE IN PISA 377

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 sanct
uary, 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 taber
nacles."

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 fa9ade with its Byzan
tine 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,

37^ FREDERICK OZANAM

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 fee1 ing of the nothingness of man, the legiti
mate pride of a Christian, all those emotions are awakened at once,
and the words of the psalm are understood : ' How beloved are Thy
tabernacles, O 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 deteriorat
ed, 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

WORK IN PISA 379

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 60,000
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 Philipaemon 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 XT 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 his
tory ; 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. Ampere. " I propose, on my return to Paris, to deliver
some lectures on the poem of the Cid, if God gives me the strength

FREDERICK OZANAM

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 Poetes franciscains which
Ampere had contributed to the Revue des Deux-Mondes on the I5th
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,

FAMILY AFFECTION 381

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 enter
tain 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 anti
cipates 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 !"

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 umt(
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 pu
injustice, nor disgrace for mighty nations !"

He confided the future of his dearest in this world to the friendship

382 FREDERICK OZANAM

of a priest of great merit : "Farewell, dear friend," he wrote to the Abbe
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
serious^ 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 I5th April to Ampere. " I commence to live since Easter :

CATHOLIC ACTION IN TUSCANY 383

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 nourishing branches " on this soil
where Catholic life was languishing, as if stifled under the golden
shackles of Josephism." * Similarly in Genoa and its environs, the
Catholic spirit, struggling with Mazzinism, Socialism, and Protestant
ism, had mustered its forces around the same banner : " The spirit of
Voltaire still flourishes among the middle classes, but the Faith sur
vives 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 re
porting 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." f 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 beauti
ful 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

^f^wtarT^ wPilles7t4' when Thou wiliest, in whatever way Thou wiliest,
because Thou wiliest.

384 FREDERICK OZANAM

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 Can
ticle 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 wilt 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 he 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 myself.* 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-re
gulated 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

*O Lord, save me and we shall sing our psalms all the days of our life in the
house of the Lord.

HIS LAST WILL 385

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 posi
tion, 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 scandal
ised 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

386 FREDERICK OZANAM

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 Abbe Noirot, M. Ampere, 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

TO LEGHORN

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 con
summated 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.

388

CHAPTER XXIX.
LEGHORN.— THE LAST SUMMER.
SAN-JACOPO. — SIENNA. — I/ANTIGNANO, MARSEILLES— A HOLY DEATH.

Leghorn is about 12 miles below Pisa. A charming little village
named San Jacopo, nestles among the rocks on the shores of the
Mediterranean, about a quarter of an hour's journey from Leghorn.
" It was there," wrote Ozanam, " that we alighted like a flock of
gulls as soon as ever the first dawn of May gave hope of Spring. I
said a quarter of an hour's journey, that is by the clock ; but fully a
hundred miles away by the appearance of the country, the quiet of
the scene and the clearness of the air. San Jacopo has the good sense
to turn its back on the idea of a commercial town, and to open its
windows joyously to the sea on a southern aspect. In front of us
stretches the Mediterranean with the magic of its ever-changing
waters, dancing, sparkling under the sun's rays, iridescent and lustrous
under a cloudy sky. It is immensity, but it is not solitude. Steamers,
ships, fishing vessels, move about on its waters ; in the distance are
to be seen Gorgone, Capraja, Elba, Corsica. That beautiful picture
is framed on our right by the mountains of Spezia crowned with snow,
on our left by Montenero with its Madonna, whither each neighbour
ing village comes in pilgrimage during the month of May."

Ozanam wrote below that picture : " My wife adores this place,
but she raves about the fishermen with their pretty lateen-sailed boats.
She has made a vow that, if I am cured, we shall sell our books, buy
a fishing boat and go singing, like the Italians, coral-fishing on the
coasts of Sicily and Sardinia. Fortunately I have not made that
promise : I stand for the home-land : I believe that the very first sail
that would waft me away, would bear me towards France. I cannot
rest until I have seen my many friends whose memory has sweetened
our exile."

Are those sketches drawn by the hand of a dying man ?

THE CONFERENCE AT LEGHORN 389

Ozanam had scarcely arrived in Leghorn, on the ist May, when the
Conference of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul carried him off to
preside over the celebration of its second anniversary. It was not
enough to preside ; he must speak. He graciously consented to say
a few words. Those words have been preserved and translated.
They are his last words in public, they are the testament of his
Charity.

" Although I am forbidden by considerations of health from
delivering even the shortest address, I cannot resist the temptation
to say a few words to you, to express the pleasure which I feel
at being again in your midst, well-beloved brothers in St. Vincent
de Paul."

Bringing his address in a calm spirit to bear upon his own state of
health, he gives himself up to memories which are saddened by the
thought of his approaching end : " When the bad days of life come
for the Christian," he said, " when he finds himself a prey to great
infirmity, that is the time for him to run back in his mind over the
years that are passed, to recall the good and the evil which he has
done, the evil, to repent of and do penance for, the good, to find consola
tion and encouragement therein, in his present affliction. I have that
experience to-day, and my tongue is incapable of expressing the
consolation which the memory of my early years brings to my soul,
especially since I do not know if God will grant me much longer the
joy of seeing the good which our dear Society of St. Vincent de Paul
is doing."

Ozanam congratulated the Leghorn Conference on the progress
which it had made in two years. As in the case of the Society itself,
the Conference was founded in the month of flowers, the month dedi
cated to Mary, our special Protectress. It had at first only eight
members, a feature of the first Conference.* Ozanam knew that the
obstacle in the way of development was due to political divisions :
" That should not exist in Italian cities, which had long been torn
by factions, until Fr. John of Vicenza, and St. Bernard of Sienna, flung
themselves, crucifix in hand, between the combatants to reconcile
them." Class hatred also existed. " It is for you then, my dear
Brothers, to intervene between rich and poor in the name of Jesus
Christ, the God of the poor and of the rich, the greatest of the rich,

*See Appendix as to the number of members in the first Conference.

390 FREDERICK OZANAM

since He is so by nature, the holiest of the poor, since He is poor by
the free choice of love."

Ozanam's words now breathed vigour and grace. It is the pheno
menon of the life ascending, and the last flow of the autumn sap to the
ends of those topmost branches that look towards heaven.

The same charity of St. Vincent de Paul urged him, on the 5th
of May, to write an extremely kind letter to one of his most interesting
' cases ' in Paris, M. Jerusalemy. He was a converted Jew who had
been recommended to the Society by the Conferences in Rome and in
Constantinople, and who had suffered courageously for his conversion.
Ozanam congratulates him upon being a Jew, one of the chosen race
of other days : " Ah ! my friend," he said, " when one has the happi
ness of being a Christian, it is a great honour to be born a Jew and to
feel oneself the lineal descendant of the patriarchs and the prophets,
whose words are so beautiful that the Church finds nothing better to
put into the mouths of her children. You must know then that
during the long weeks of lassitude, the Psalms of David have scarce
left my hands. Has not the Saviour allowed Himself to be called the
Son of David ? I, too, cry out often in my infirmity : 'Son of David,
have mercy on me ! ' I do not know if I told you, but my brother
Charles will tell you, that we also believe we are of Jewish descent,
which is another bond of union between us. You ought, therefore, to
understand why we brothers have a deep interest in all that concerns
you. I believe that Charles will have introduced you into a Conference
of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul. It does me good to know that
we are linked together by that bond. Do not weary of loving, nor of
praying, my dear Jerusalemy, for one who is yours devotedly." That
letter is the perfection of kindness.

The beneficial effect of the sea on Ozanam's health was not slow
in making itself felt, as he had already experienced at Dieppe and
Biarritz. Having got back a little of his strength, he attempted to
resume literary work. It was at San-Jacopo that he began, for the
tenth time, the final revision of his trip to Burgos, his three days
Odyssey. " Ah !" he exclaimed occasionally, "why is this San Jacopo
of Leghorn not St. James of Compostella." He wrote slowly, quietly,
at intervals on the same table at which his daughter Marie was learning
her lessons. As soon as a page was finished he read it to his wife, both
experiencing a feeling of joy at seeing the attentive face of the child,
who also did not forget.

HIS LITERARY DISTINCTIONS 391

About that time, May- June, 1853, the Poetes franciscains opened the
doors of the Florentine Academy De La Crusca to him, and he was
received into its ranks at the same sitting as Cesare Balbo, the re
nowned author of the Speranze d' I Mia. He had been a corresponding
member of the Tiberian Academy of Rome since 1841, a member of
the Academy of the Arcades since 1844. He was also a member of
the Royal Academy of Bavaria, 1847, of the Lyons Academy, ist
January, 1848. But nothing seems to have touched him so much as
his affiliation to the Order of St. Francis. The certificate of member
ship, under the seal of the General of the Order, was delivered to him
in San Jacopo. " He numbers me among the benefactors of the
Franciscan family," he wrote on the 22nd of June, " and gives me a
share in the merits of the Friars Minors who are working and praying
for everyone, it is not the least affecting of my titles."

On the other hand, in the same letter he definitely gave up all idea
of membership of the Academy of Inscriptions and Literature, for
which honour his friends declared him qualified and designated. He
replied to M. Ampere : " In such a solemn moment, when every
question of my future is hanging on the great question of my health,
when I am asking God to let me live for the sake of my wife and child,
would there not be a certain inconsistency in seeking that superfluity
to satisfy my literary self-love ?"

Two months "intimate acquaintance with the sea" had passed
when Ozanam was able to write with gratitude : "1 am enjoying the
pleasure of resuming by degrees my way of living. I am able to take
long walks without fatigue ; I spend mornings on the rocks watching
the waves, every trick of which I know by this time. My strength
is coming back but slowly ; but that was to be expected after such a
long and serious attack. Certainly if July and August, which are
reputed to be great doctors, treat me well, I shall be cured this
autumn."

The following day, the 23rd of June, was the twelfth anniversary
of his marriage. Ozanam, sitting in sight of the sea dotted with sails,
wrote the following verses in honour of his wife, with a pure and tender
grace, inspired by faith, hope and love, the three Christian Muses :

Sur r£cueil de San- Jacopo, 23 juin, 1853.

Sur un ecueil lointain, notre nef echouee
Attend le flot sauveur qui la ramene au port ;
Et la Madone, a qui la barque fut vouee,
Semble sourde a nos voeux ; et 1'Enfant Jesus dort !

392 FREDERICK OZANAM

Pourtant voici douze ans, sous ce doux patronage

Nous partions, pleins d'espoir ; des fleurs ornaient ton front ;

Et bientot. pour charmer, pour benir le voyage,

A la poupe s'assit un petit ange blond.

Depuis ce temps, le ciel s'est noirci sur nos tetes,
Les vents ont ballottS notre esquif nuit et jour.
Mais nous n'avons pas vu si cmelles tempetes
Ni si rudes climats ou s'eteignit 1'amour.

Non, non, je ne veux plus craindre sous votre garde.
Compagne de 1'exil que Dieu me prepare !
Dejd d'un oeil clement la Yierge nous regarde.
Tout a 1'heure 1' Enfant Jesus s'eveillera.

Et sa main nous poussant vers une mer calmee,
Sans peur et sans etiort nous toucherous enftn
Au bord ou uos amis, foule ardente et charmee,
Signalent notre voile et nous tendent la main.*

1 he house in San Jacopo could not keep its guests beyond the end of
June. The doctors permitted Ozanam to spend JuU* and August at
Antignano, a pretty little village at the foot of Montenero. The best
society in Florence, Pisa, Sienna and Leghorn spent those months
there : " We are to be Italians for two months. Marie will take baths
and I, the air. I shall enjoy the charming society of Professor
Femicci and through him the books of the Pisa Library. He was my
literary purveyor during the winter. Neither will my wife and child
be lonely. I f God permits my cure to continue, we shall spend a happy
time there. The memory of the absent will not be wanting, and on this
occasion there will also be the hope of again seeing them."

As Antignano could not receive Ozanam until the middle of July,
he spent the first fortnight of the month in making what he called
" his pastoral visitation " of the Conferences in that area, Florence,
Pontedera, Prato, etc. He sent a report of the visitation to Paris.
We shall be pardoned for reproducing the description of the humble

• On the Rock of San- Jacopo, 23rd Jttnf. 1853.

Stranded on a distant rock our little barque awaits the saving tide to bring
it into port. The Madonna, to whom the vessel is dedicated, seems deaf to our
appeals and the Infant Jesus slumbers !

It is twelve years to-day since we set out on our voyage full of hope ; garlands
decorated thy head. To bless the voyage, a little fair- haired angel soon appeared
at the stern.

Since then the heavens have grown dark and the storms have blown our little
skifi hither and thither by night and day. But neither the trials of the tempest
nor the hardships of the climate could extinguish our love.

Dearest companion of the exile whom God allotted to me, I have no further
fear in your sweet care. Already the merciful eyes of the Virgin Mother are «
turning to us : the Infant Jesus will soon awaken.

Drawn by His hand into a calm sea we shall reach at length the shore where
our longing, loving friends are waiting to receive us.

PONTEDERA AND SIENNA

artisan who presided over the Conference of Pontedecu "Pontedera
is a good market-town erf from five to six thousand inhabitants
You must not expect to find nobles and savants there, «<m muiU
nobiUs, non multi sapientts. But we have Brother B. there, an<
him one of the most capable and most commanding Presidents that I
know. Brother B. is a knife-grinder, but not a travelling grinder
he has a shop with a very good connexion. On market days he
sharpens scythes, reaping-hooks and priming-hooks for the peasants.
But in his leisure hours— and Italians have many such—
has read a good deal ; he studies his religion in the lives and the works
of the saints. As a result of that contact with the greatest :
Christianity he has acquired a sound knowledge, and in ad<
extraordinary elevation of mind, and a charm of speech whi
heightened by naturally amiable and refined manners. He came in
the garb of a workman, but before five minutes Lad elapsed
cognised in him a superior man who was infinitely more interesting
than the mob of distinguished people who crowd the salons.
few words he brought, not merely to my knowledge b
eyes, the little Conference of Pontedera, its works, difficulties an<
all with a simplicity, tact, and propriety of expressdo
my mind, the while his exquisite Tuscan pronunciation delighted i

Ozanam would not be consoled for the absence of a Cor^ren'
Vienna ; all the more because half of the Pisa University nac t>een
mnsferred thither, bringing in its tram a large number of sradents.
Ozanam wished to go there. His friends objected t^at tue ) ^
was difficult : " Since God is restoring my strength, be repi>
is in His sen-ice that it must be spent.

The warmest possible welcome «"as
from the Rev. Pere Pendola, the i o?t
He was General Head-Master of the I
Tuscany, director of the College <
portant Italian schools— a Prole

;.: •• :. . ---- = - ::--" '- '- -' -'• -'' '-~~' "" :

onlv for his nve \-isitors, a lad\', an in

guide. They settled down in the house,

iness for them, where every care was lavished

™te to P*e Pennon J«^ b«

to exist in happy SKnna, where, it is

394 FREDERICK OZANAM

waited on by angels. We are indeed not saints, but a good angel has
certainly waited on us. We left, laden with presents and happy
memories, I with your work on the Lingua Lombarda, and with your
portrait which I value still more highly ; Am&ie with Saint Catherine ;
and Marie with such a load of presents that we might as well have
carried away the Town Hall tower."

But the one thing necessary, the sole object of the trip, the much-
desired establishment of a Conference of the Society of St. Vincent
de Paul, had not been achieved. After four days' efforts to lay the
foundations, after a last evening spent in recommending the project
to the Rev. Father and to some influential people, the answer came,
that the spirit of the young Tuscan nobles would not adapt itself to
the visitation of the poor in their homes. Ozanam went away bitterly
disappointed. It was only the hope of accomplishing that good work,
he said, that sustained him and made him capable of such fatigue.
He had failed. When he returned disappointed, he was heard saying,
with tears in his eyes : " God no longer blesses my efforts. He does
not wish for any further service at my hands !"

However, Pere Pendola, whom he called " his dear friend," had not
said his last word. Having had no reply for a fortnight after his
return to Antignano, Ozanam made up his mind to make another
assault on that noble heart. He wrote. The last lines of his letter,
all aflame with the charity of Jesus Christ, are not surpassed by any
thing which has come from that heart of fire, and which alas ! was so
near extinction ! " Reverend Father and dear friend, I was very
glad to sec the good seed of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul
germinate and fructify in your Tuscan soil. I have seen it do so
much good, sustain very many young men in the practice of virtue,
and enkindle wonderful zeal ! We have Conferences in Quebec
and Mexico. We have them in Jerusalem. We have certainly one
in Heaven, for more than a thousand of our Brothers have, during
the twenty years of our existence, gone to the better life. Why then
should we not have a Conference in Sienna, which is called the Ante-
Chambcr of Paradise ? Why should we not see in the city of the
Blessed Virgin, a Society which has the Blessed Virgin for its principal
Patron ? Above all, why should we not succeed in the College of
Tolomei, where our young branch, under your fostering hand, would
not run the danger of precocious maturity ?"

" You have many rich children. O Father ! what a salutary lesson

CROWNED WITH SUCCESS 395

for hearts degenerated by luxury, what a beneficent sight it would be
to show them Our Lord Jesus Christ, not only in the pictures of great
masters, not only on altars glittering with gold and light, but in the
person and the suffering of the poor ! We have often discussed the
weakness, the futility, of men, even of Christian men, among the
nobility of France and Italy. I am satisfied that they are so because
one thing has been wanting to their education. There are some things
that they have not been taught, some things that they know by name
only, and which one must have seen others suffer, to learn how to
suffer when suffering comes, as it will sooner or later. Those
things are grief, privation, want. . . . These young gentlemen
must learn to know what are hunger, thirst, and the destitution
of a garret. They must look at wretched fellow-creatures, sick
and noisy children. They must look at them and love them. Such
a sight will pull at their heart-strings or this generation were lost.
But we must never believe in the death of a young Christian soul.
It is not dead bat sleepeth."

Ozanam then comes to the ways and means of the Society. He
sends to his " dear and valued friend " the Bulletin of the Society,
a guide for the formation of Conferences in Colleges, the adaptation of
the Rule to their special circumstances, the visitation of the poor in
their homes, in groups accompanied by a master, etc. " A share in
all their good works will be added to the crown which God is preparing
for Pere Pendola, and which will be awarded, I hope, at as late a date
as possible."

Now, Gros-Jean veut precher son cure,* and wishes to be excused
for it. " No, Father, it is not I who am preaching ; it is your example,
your conversation, your charity, which are preaching to me, bidding
me to trust in you and to leave that good work in your hands."

That letter was dated the igth July, the Feast of St. Vincent de
Paul. The reply was not long in coming. Ozanam received on the
next day the following three lines, short as a telegram ; it was a com
munique of victory : " My dear friend, I founded two Conferences
of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul on the Feast Day itself, one in
my College, the other in the city."

On the same day in Paris, and on the same Feast Day at the annual
General Meeting of the Sficiety, M. Cornudet, Vice- President-General,

"The sexton is preaching to the priest.

396 FREDERICK OZANAM

who was to deliver an address, requested the permission of the meeting
to read instead a letter, which he had just received from his colleague,
Ozanam. " This letter," he said, " contains the most arresting and
edifying details of a number of Italian Conferences which our dear
Vice- President has had the pleasure of visiting lately." The letter
was received with every demonstration of welcome.

It closed with the following words : "Far from finding, my dear
Brothers, matter for pride in such expansion, we shall seek to develop
the spirit of humility. Grass grows rapidly, but it does not cease
on that account to be insignificant ; it does not say because it covers
much ground, ' I am the oak.' We, too, while we become numerous,
remain insignificant and feeble ; we do not dream of comparing our
selves to institutions, which God has reared up in the Church, like
mighty trees of the forest, to give shade and fruit. Let us be humble.
I notice regularly that in Italy as in France, our Conferences succeed
in the end in overcoming prejudices and difficulties. Now everybody
is prejudiced against a new Society which thunders in the index and
announces ambitious schemes. But what ill can anyone wish a few
obscure men, who do not propose to do more than carry bread and
consolation into a few garrets? May God preserve the simplicity
which characterised our first efforts, and by that sign St. Vincent de
Paul will acknowledge us for his disciples."

" Farewell, my dear Brothers, I commend myself to your prayers
of which I stand in need."

Let this not be forgotten ; that it had been in the service of truth
that Ozanam had sacrificed his strength down to his last lecture in
the Sorbonne : " As for me, gentlemen, if I die, it will be in your
service." It is likewise in the service of his Association of Charity
that in Leghorn and Sienna he breathes out his last accents : " Devotion
to the point of martyrdom," the young apostle had written at twenty
years of age.

Antignano gave the invalid some more good days. Up to the end
of July, Ozanam was able to walk to the edge of the sea every evening.
He was able to go every morning very slowly to Mass in the neigh
bouring Church. It was a poor little Church built in the fortified
enclosure which protected it against the old-time attacks of the
Saracens, the terrible raiders over all that beautiful landscape.

He could still write an occasional letter. The memory of Lyons,
of his dear city of Lyons, of his friends in Lyons, his oldest friends,

LETTER TO LYONS 397

haunted him with sadness and reproach, a reproach caused by his
long silence. He addressed them all in the person of M. Prosper
Dugas* in the following note which did not wish to say farewell :

" My dear friend, it is a very long time since I have given any sign
of life to my friends in Lyons, and yet I have not ceased to think of
them. God, Who is ever to be praised and blessed, has condemned
me to enforced leisure, making me abandon my home, my occupation
and my daily habits. I have had to learn how to cut out a good part
of the things that bind man to earth, and I have lived a wanderer
looking for health, asking it of the beneficent mountain spas, of the
sea- air, of the Italian sky."

" Many of those, nay all who love me in Lyons followed me into
exile with their solicitude ; you have been anxious about my health,
you have helped me with your prayers. I do believe that I am much
indebted to the prayers of my friends, to the Holy Sacrifice offered up
by many holy priests. I attribute to them the infinite consolation
which I have received in my crosses from the hands of God. When
He visited me with a relapse in Pisa, He surrounded me with the
tenderest care. He called to my side unexpectedly the affection of
many people to whom I had been a complete stranger the previous
day, but who in the hour of affliction saw in me a brother."

" I have hopes that such prayers have taken Heaven by storm, and
that I am on the way to a cure that seemed improbable for so long.
The lovely weather and the sea air have done me untold good."

" But still the doctors' orders confine me to the spot where I first
showed signs of improvement. I am sure that you would refuse to
pity me if you saw the charming slopes where I inhale the Mediter
ranean breezes, with my small, well-beloved family, at the feet of the
Virgin of Montenero, who keeps guard, as at Fourviere, over a great
Catholic city."

" Yet, my dear friends, I would give all the splendour of these
Italian skies, all the perfumes of this exotic vegetation, all the magic
of this beautiful language, to which I listen with such great pleasure,
I would give them all to be able to revisit my humble home, to see the
streamlet in my own street, the staircase of my own third storey, the
books in my own library, and still more to shake the hands of my own
friends in Lyons."

*See Prosper Dugas, Vie et Souvenirs, ch. II., pages 32, 33, Oudin Bros., 1878.

398 FREDERICK OZANAM

The last letter to France was written to M. Eugene Rendu, who
had announced his approaching marriage to Ozanam. The reply is
dated less than two months prior to Ozanam's death, and it is extraor
dinary to find his speech so merry and his imagination so playful :

' Your charming letter reached us near Florence, the city of flowers,
which was indeed an appropriate spot on which to receive such a happy
message. But why did it not come under the wing of a white dove ?
We were just then, Madame Ozanam and I, on the terrace of my
cousin's little villa below San Miniato, having at our feet that city of
marble nestling in verdure." Ozanam is replying " on a table heavy
with the perfume of branches of myrtle snow-white with flowers,"
which he regrets he is unable to present to the fiancee, who would wear
them with such charm ! But such a symbol would be a profanity for
Christians. Ozanam congratulates his friend on a perfect Christian
marriage ; his virtuous youth has indeed merited the spouse whom
God has selected to bring him happiness and honour. " Such unions
are not common, and only those who know them can speak of them.
That is why I congratulate you, my dear friend. I rejoice beforehand,
as at a happy augury, at the name Amelie by which you call your com
panion. Is it also our example which has induced you to select the
23rd for your wedding-day ? The 23rd signifies happiness. The good
wishes of your friends, the merits of your parents, are weaving a crown
of happiness for you which will never fade."

His last efforts to wield a pen were devoted to the Ptlerinage au
Pays du Cid. But how laborious it was ! Ozanam was so exhausted
that he could not write three lines in succession without being obliged
to rest on a couch. He saw only very few friends, such as the Ferrucci.
The Abbe Perreyve's affecting notice of their young daughter, Rosa,
has introduced that family to the knowledge of France. Notabilities of
many places sought for the honour of coming into contact with the
renowned Frenchman. Ozanam was grateful for their kindness, but
declined their homage. One day, owing to considerations of health,
he declined to see a princely person who had come in a grand carriage
to pay him a visit ; the same evening a poor young man from Sardinia
arrived on foot from Leghorn covered with dust, to make enquiries
in reference to the foundation of a Conference in his island. The
invalid welcomed him with joy, summoned up all his strength and kept
Jiim for two hours by his side.

Two young members of the Leghorn Conference, two brothers

HIS LAST MASS 399

Bevilacqua, had conceived a genuine affection for that great and holy
friend, to whom all their free time was henceforth devoted. There
was a continuous express service on foot on the dusty road between
Leghorn and Antignano, for everything that was needed, or that
delicate forethought could suggest. One day a basket of his favourite
flowers would arrive for the invalid ; on another, when the fever was
high, a supply of ice ; and a like supply the first thing the following
morning. When the illness became critical, the two brothers passed
the night, unknown to the invalid, in a neighbouring house, and as
soon as a light in the window notified a crisis, they came forward and
placed themselves at the disposal of Madame Ozanam.

The fishermen and peasants were also won over by the " pious
stranger," bringing him their little gifts from land or sea, with those
sweet- sounding words of sympathy and friendship of which Italian
holds the secret. Ozanam made a gracious acknowledgement.

All that affectionate anxiety, the close and continuous attention
of his doctor, the spiritual care of his confessor, the Superior of the
Lazarists in Leghorn, overwhelmed him with gratitude. He re-opened
his last will in order to put on record their names, and his gratitude :

" Antignano, 8th August. I add here my deep and sincere acknow
ledgments to the brothers Bevilacqua, Dr. Prato, and the Reverend
Pere Massucco, who have overwhelmed me with kindness. God alone
can reward them."

His strength was by this time diminishing noticeably ; the limbs
were swelling, and it was only with the greatest difficulty that they were
able to carry him to the end of the little garden. His two brothers
were notified. Charles, the doctor, hurried to him in the early days
of August. Nobody, either in Paris or Leghorn, was under any illusion
as to the result. One can read in a letter from the Abbe Perreyve
written during those days : " The latest news of M. Ozanam is heart
breaking. Charles, his brother, received a telegram from Madame
Ozanam four days ago, stating that the dear invalid is in a state of
extreme weakness. I cannot express the profound grief which that
news has caused all who knew and loved M. Ozanam. What a
loss to every good cause, to religion, to truth ! But above all, what a
loss to me !"

The great Feast of the Assumption was at hand. He insisted on
attending Church to hear Mass and receive Holy Communion. He
declined to make use of the carriage which his wife had hired from

400 FREDERICK OZANAM

Leghorn : " It may be my last walk in this world, and I desire that it
shall be to pay a visit to my God and His Blessed Mother," and he set
out leaning on the arm of her whom he called his guardian angel. The
peasants, notified of his coming, were standing in groups about the
Church ; as, deadly pale, he passed in, every head was uncovered, and
all bowed reverently ; while the young women and children waved
their hands to him, in the native form of salutation. He was
moved to tears.

The old Cure of Antignano was also dying under the shadow of his
Church. Hearing that M. Ozanam had come, and was asking for a
priest to give him Holy Communion before Mass : " I shall go," he
said, " get me up." They dressed him and helped him downstairs.
He reached the altar of his church, which was decorated with flowers
and filled with parishioners, all in their best clothes for the Feast.
The husband advanced to the altar-rail supported by his wife. The
old priest, himself supported on the arm of his clerk, came down from
the altar and gave both the Bread of Life. It was the last oc
casion on which he discharged that sacred office ; it was likewise the
last Mass at which Ozanam assisted on earth.

His brother, the priest, had surprised him by arriving unexpectedly,
never to be again parted from him. The same day he drove with him
as far as the edge of the sea. " There," he relates, " Ozanam got out
and dragged his steps with great difficulty to a little promontory,
where a seat had been placed for him. He fixed his gaze over the
vast horizon of the Mediterranean, as if he sought to pierce the im
mensity of space." That night the two brothers watched by his bed
side in turn. One of them, noticing him in tears during the night,
asked him : " Why do you worry yourself ? Be easy in your
mind. We shall soon see France." But he answered : " Ah ! my
dear brother, it is not that. But when I think of my sins, for which
God has suffered so much, how can I refrain from tears ?" On another
occasion, while he was also sad, a gentle voice said to him : " Are you
then really such a great sinner ?" He answered at once with em
phasis: " Child, you do not understand what the holiness of God is."
Ozanam did not forget the 23rd of the month, the anniversary of
his happy marriage. On that morning he presented his wife with a
myrtle branch in flower, which he had noted on the shore the previous
evening for that purpose.

It was on one of such days that he wrote for her, and placed on

GOD'S GREAT GIFT 401

record in his will, the following beautiful farewell verses, to be placed
after his death at the foot of a picture after Fra Angelico, which he
left her as a souvenir. The engraving represented angels receiving,
introducing, and welcoming into Paradise the elect, whose guardians
they had been in this world :

Ces anges attendaient, au sortir de la terre,
Les elus conn 6s a leur doux ministere.
Toi, mon Ange gardien, tu restes ici-bas :
Ta priere ouvrira le ciel devant mes pas.
Tu restes quelques jours pour mettre sur la voie
L'enfant, la tendre enfant qui causait notre joie.
Fais qu'elle pense a moi, donne-lui tes vertus.
Nous nous retrouverons au sejour od Ton aime,
Et nous echangerons sous les yeux de Dieu meme,
Le long embrassement qui ne finira plus.*

Ozanam passed those days buried in his thoughts, reclining on a
sofa on the terrace in the open air. There was no distraction save his
child, who left her playthings from time to time to ask a caress or a
blessing. The Bible lay open by his side. The sacred word had so
completely taken possession of his mind that he became oblivious of
his surroundings. There were some texts to which he clung, such as
the following form of consecration of the sacrifice of himself to the
Eternal God : " Lord, Thou hast lent me this body. No other sacrifice
whatever could please Thee. Behold me then, I come, as it was
written at the beginning of Thy book. It is Thy will that I shall do,
my God."

One evening he was lying on a sofa on the terrace contemplating
the sun setting over the waters. His wife was sitting on a chair some
what behind him so that he should not see her tears. She was ad
miring the serene tranquility, which reigned over the features and in
the attitude of her dear invalid. It occurred to iier to ask him, which
of God's gifts he set greatest store on ? He answered without hesita
tion, " Peace of heart : without it no good can make us happy ; with it
every trial, even the approach of death, can be borne/'

A few days later, as they were sitting together on the same terrace,
listening to the lapping of the summer waves and the singing of the

* Translation : —

" Those angels were awaiting at the moment of departure from this earth
the faithful who had been entrusted to their fostering care. You, my guardian
angel will remain on earth ; your prayers will open Heaven to me. You will
remain for yet a little while, to guide the footsteps of the darling child who was
our joy. Teach her to think of me, endow her with your virtues. We shall
meet again in the abode of love, and under the eyes of the^good God Himself we
shall love one another with a love that will know no end."

Ar

402 FREDERICK OZANAM

birds in the neighbouring copses : "If anything," he said, " can
console me for leaving this world with my work unfinished, it is that
I have never worked to win the approbation of men, but solely in the
service of truth."

The disease became daily more pronounced. The invalid was
altogether exhausted and scarcely spoke ; everything pointed to an
immediate collapse. Was Ozanam after all to die in a foreign land ?
He had expressed an ardent desire to see France. They decided to
take the boat at the earliest possible moment for Marseilles.

The last day of August was the day fixed for departure. Ozanam
accompanied by his wife, his daughter, and his two brothers, passed
out of the house in Antignano, the house of his suffering. While the
carriage was waiting, he had himself half led, half carried, on the
arms of his wife and his brother to the terrace of the garden over
looking the sea. He remained a few moments in silent contemplation.
Then taking off his hat he raised his hands aloft and said aloud to
heaven : " My God, I give Thee thanks for the afflictions and sufferings
which Thou hast sent me in this house ; accept them in expiation of
my sins." Turning then to his wife : " I want you also to praise and
bless God for our sufferings." Taking her in his arms : " I bless Him
for all the consolation which you have given me."

He was led on board, where he spent some time on the deck sitting
in an armchair, amid priests, religious, friends, members of the Society
of St. Vincent de Paul, who had come to bid adieu to him. Those
adieus had to be cut short, he was obliged to go down to his cabin,
where he was settled for the night. His brother, the priest, passed
the night by his bed-side.

When day broke the vessel put in at Bastia, where it stayed some
hours. Advantage was taken of the stay to rig-up a bed on the deck.
The sea was like glass, the air clear as crystal, the sky without a cloud.
The invalid could not remove his eyes from the poetic shores of Italy,
which were rapidly receding from sight. But when the shores of
Provence appeared on the horizon, a great joy at seeing his native
land was apparent, and he thanked God with clasped hands. He fell
into a peaceful sleep. When he awoke he was in the harbour of
Marseilles. His mother-in-law and other members of his wife's family
appeared almost immediately. When he found himself with them,
his troubles seemed to disappear and it was almost in a joyous strain
that he said with a mighty effort : " Behold one journey completed ;

THE DOTTED LINES SHOWS OZANAM'S LAST JOURNEY.
He was born in Milan, he journeyed, ill unto death, from Leghorn via
Bastia to Marseilles, he died in Marseilles and was interred in Paris.

DEATH

I shaU make another, but I shall make it in tranquillity. Now that I
have placed Amelie in your arms, God will do with me what He wills "
He wished to see Paris, but that desire could not be gratified. He
retired to bed as soon as he reached the house in Marseilles which
his relatives had prepared for him. He was not to arise from it again
The members of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul approached him
filled with respect ; he was not able to receive them, but showed that
he appreciated what they had done. "Now," wrote Lacordaire,
" that he had reached the land of his ancestors and of his works, he
appeared to suffer no more. All traces of apprehension had dis
appeared ; his figure exhibited a calm, which belonged neither to life
nor to death ; nothing could equal the serenity of his mind and of his
features. He spoke little, but he had a pressure of the hand, a smile,
a sign for those whom he loved. Feeling his end approaching, he
himself asked for the last Sacraments. As the priest who attended
him enjoined him to entrust himself to the goodness of God without
fear : " Ah ! why should I fear Him," he replied, " I love Him so."

He received Holy Communion with extraordinary fervour. Madame
Ozanam then took his hands in hers and together they made the
heroic sacrifice before God, the one of her husband, the other of his
life.

The 8th September, the Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin,
had dawned. There was no indication of the end to alarm the by
standers in the morning. But in the evening about half-past seven,
his breathing became laboured and irregular. He was seen to open his
eyes, to raise his arms, and to cry aloud with a strong voice, " My God,
my God, have mercy on me."

Those were his last words. The death agony commenced. All in
the room were kneeling. The next room was filled with brothers of
the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, silently praying. His brother,
the priest, said the prayers for the dying. When they were finished
a great silence ensued broken with sobs. The hour was ten minutes
to eight in the evening ; a deep sigh escaped from the lips of the dying
man ; it was the end. Frederick Ozanam had entered, we may hope,
into the joy of his Master.

After a Low Mass in Marseilles, the body of the deceased was
carried to Paris, where a full Requiem Mass was celebrated at St.
Sulpice. There was an immense cortege of priests, friends, professors,
members of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul. The body was de-

404 FREDERICK OZANAM

posited temporarily in the crypt of the Church, until such time as it
could, through the kindness of M. Fortoul, Minister of Public Worship,
be transferred to the crypt of the Historic Church of the Carmelites.

It is there that the body of Frederick Ozanam reposes to-day. Over
his tomb appear the glorious words of the Gospel : " Why seek you the
living with the dead ?"*

That Church receives the students of the Catholic Institute for
prayer and the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, thus fulfilling the prophetic
wish of Ozanam when himself a student on the 15 th January, 1831 :
' ' I shall be glad if a few friends stand by me. We shall unite our efforts
and found a Society ; others will join us ; it may happen that some
day society will come together under its protection. Then, full of
youth and strength, Catholicity will burst upon the world, and
directing the rising generation, will lead it on to true civilisation and
happiness."

*The subterranean chapel is dedicated to Jesus Christ Conqueror of Death
and to the Virgin Mother. Near the altar the following Latin epitaph is inscribed,
decorated with pious objects, recalling the catacombs :

OZANAM PIENTISSIMUS ADSERTOR VERI TOTIUS CARITATIS

VIXIT A. XL. M. IX. D. XVI. DECESSIT DIE VIII SEPT. MDCCCLIII
AMALIA CONJUGI CUM QUO VIXIT ANN. XII
ET MARIA PATRI POSUERUNT.
VIVAS IN DEO !

In the upper Church (St. Joseph's Chapel) a second inscription sets forth the
titles and merits of the great Christian :

A. F. OZANAM VERB CHRISTIANUS, DOCTRINA ET CARITATE

ORATOR IDEM ET SCRIPTOR EGREGIUS ADSERTOR VERI STRENUUS

SOLADITATI B. VINCENTII CONDENDJE AUCTOR INTER PAUCOS PRIMUS

DICTORUM SCRIPTORUM ET VITA ELOQUENTIA ANIMOS JUVENTUTIS

AD FIDEM REVOCAVIT.

MONUMENT ERECTED TO OZANAM BY THE SOCIETY OF

ST. VINCENT DE PAUL IN THE CRYPT OF THE CARMELITE

CHURCH IN PARIS.

405

CHAPTER XXX.

EPILOGUE.
HIS LITERARY AND CHARITABLE LEGACY.

TESTIMONY TO THE DECEASED.— LITERARY WORK.— CHARITABLE WORK.—
SOCIETY OF ST. VINCENT DE PAUL.

Ozanam had written in his will : "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 shall come to me."

Whatever the deceased may have said, the certainty of his salvation
finds expression in all the letters of condolence which were received ;
through tears, his friends and disciples see him in Heaven.

The Dean of the Faculty of Literature, who did not lean to the
side of belief, saluted in him an immortal in the heavens, as he stood
by his sarcophagus in a subterranean vault of St. Sulpice : " Our
consolation," he said, " is that we believe we hear him repeating the
words of the Italian poet : ' Weep no more ; death is the beginning of
Immortality. When I seemed to close my eyes, I was opening them to
Eternal Light.' We could also say that he had been happy in this
passing existence .... but it was not here, it was on high, that
Frederick Ozanam placed all his hopes, and will receive his reward."

M. de La Villemarque described his consternation, and that of all his
household when they saw the announcement of his death. He wrote
immediately : "I could only hand the paper to my wife and cry
bitterly ; we wept together and could not utter a single word. Our
grand-children, who were present, looked at us in amazed silence. . . .
I loved him as a brother, I admired him as a master, I venerated him
as a saint ! ... In calling him so soon to Himself, in remaining deaf

FREDERICK OZANAM

.to the prayers of hundreds of thousands of members of the charitable
Society founded by our friend, God hastened to make him taste the
joys of Heaven." (Keransker, i6th of September, 1853).

I have twenty letters by me of the same date ; from his former
masters in the Lyons College, the Abbe Noirot and M. Legeay ; from
his former comrades, Baron Chaurand, Paul de la Perriere, Diifieux,
Falconnet ; all place him in Heaven : " He gave his life for Truth',
for Faith, for Charity ; are we at liberty to complain ? I doubt it.''
Another : "His years were so full, that it can be said of him that he
knew how to live two lives in the space of one. His crown should be
bright."

M. Leonce Curnier : " As for me, I never think of Frederick without
an inclination to invoke his assistance. The aureola of sanctity which
surrounded him in my eyes while he lived, has lost nothing of its
splendour. I seem to see him in Heaven between St. Vincent de Paul
and St. Francis de Sales, whose faithful disciple he was. I love to
represent to myself the altar at which I kneel set off with his picture ;
and the devotion which I feel for him for years can only increase
with life."

Distinguished ecclesiastics wrote to Madame Ozanam : " Rest
assured, Madame, that, if his death is a mystery of frightful suffering,
it is equally a mystery of inexpressible love ; if, at the command of
such love, you are separated, it is to give him to God, the oblation of
a saint, who will be an ornament in Heaven."

Montalembert also looked to Heaven confidently for the soul of him,
of whom he wrote as follows from Roche-en-Breny : " He leaves to
us, as to you, Madame, the almost complete certainty of his immediate
and eternal happiness. It is not for one like me to speak of God and
of Heaven to a soul still flooded with the light which radiated from

the death-bed of such a Christian as he When you pray for

him and with him, when you seek his soul in the serene regions in which
it awaits yours, please, Madame, remember me at least once, offer
him the pious grief of an old friend, of an old fellow-member of the
Society of St. Vincent de Paul, of an old soldier in the same cause, who
will forget neither his instruction nor his example."

The Abbe Perreyve uttered cries of grief over his grave, which are at
the same time cries of enthusiasm and appeal : " God knows, Madame,
that I have prayed Him most earnestly to accept the useless days of
my life, in exchange for a few days of such a precious existence

CLERGY AND MEMBERS 407

Yes, I loved him dearly ; death cannot touch that ; it cannot break the
links uniting an immortal soul with those whom it will love for ever.
The impulses of our hearts follow him where he is living by the side of
God. We shall consult him there ; we shall learn from there the
secret of a charity which was invincible and humble ; let us go thither
for inspiration from that Christian wisdom, which seeks and loves God
even to martyrdom. May my prayers be heard ! May I cultivate in
my life as a priest, some of the virtues of his apostolate."

The Abbe Perreyve, passing through Marseilles, soon after on his
way to Italy, was led to the room in which Ozanam breathed his last.
He knelt in prayer there. He cultivated devotion to his holy master.

The following lines are from a holy Priest in Rome, Fr. Philip de
Villefort, of the Society of Jesus : " He was a just man, in the meaning
of the Holy Scriptures ; he was of the number of those who spent them
selves doing good, he had such a long and holy career in such a short
time ! His whole life, the secret of which he concealed from us, but
which the eyes of the Just Judge devined, his precious death in the
practice of Faith, Hope and Charity, all combine to give you the only
possible consolation. I shall continue to pray for him, though I feel
sure that he is in possession of eternal glory."

M. Adolphe Baudon, President-General, forbade a panegyric of the
first founder at a meeting of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul. Such a
eulogium would have been repugnant to the tradition and the spirit
of the Society. " Ozanam is no longer with us," he said, " to remind
us of our primitive spirit ; he shortened his brief life to radiate that
spirit from his scene of suffering. Let not his memory and his example
be effaced in our minds ; that is the truest homage which we could pay
him, being persuaded that from heaven he sets a higher value on such
fidelity, than in those rare qualities of genius which were his glory in
the eyes of men. That fidelity constitutes his merit and ensures his
happiness in the sight of God."

M. Cornudet, presiding over the General Quarterly Meeting, on the
8th December, 1853, spoke as follows : " Three months ago this very
day, my dear Brothers, Ozanam, our well-beloved Brother, gave back
his beautiful soul to God ; the Church was celebrating that same day
a Feast of the Blessed Virgin, to whom he had been greatly devoted ;
we find consolation and hope in such a coincidence. The Society of
St. Vincent de Paul loses in Ozanam its guide and its model, one of
the men of the age who have rendered the greatest service to the

408 FREDERICK OZANAM

Catholic cause. He has been snatched away in the flower of his years
in the fullness of his genius, of his virtues, of his influence on youth.
But do not those very virtues, the loss of which we deplore, throw a
light on the Divine Will, which would not have him wait longer for the
supreme reward ? He is no longer present amongst us, but his sancti
fied memory remains, and with it the belief, that the all-powerful
prayers of that splendid friend of the Society, who knows it needs,
will have a more beneficent influence than even his voice and his
example."

Francois Lallier declared that his spirit is henceforth with Ozanam in
heaven : " His death and that of my father," he wrote to La Perriere,
" have changed the course of my thoughts. I continue to do the
same things as before, but I do not do them with the same spirit."

Lamache, thirty years later, wrote : " To follow out Ozanam's
testamentary wishes, I have not ceased to pray for the repose of his
soul ; but I am quite convinced that the prayers which were directed
to Purgatory, went straight to Paradise, and descended on him who
offered them."

At a special meeting of the French Academy, M. Guizot, a Protestant,
forgetting the many controversies which he had had with Ozanam'
stood in respect before him whom he describes as : " The model of the
Christian man of Letters, the ardent lover of Science, and the steady
champion of Faith, who was patient and meek in long and fatal suffer
ing, who was snatched away from the purest joys of life, but who was
already ripe for Heaven as well as for glory."

When Ozanam's letters were published in 1866, the same unison,
in a more religious key, was heard. Dr. Plantier, Bishop of Nimes,
saluted in him " The angel of charity, the athlete of faith. He was
a saint." The Cardinal of Bordeaux stood amazed at " that pure
glory of sanctity, in which that star was lost to our mortal sight."

But before hearing the princes of the Church I should have recorded,
with respect, the words of consolation and hope which the Sovereign
Pontiff Pius IX. addressed, in memory of his well-beloved son of 1847,
to the young widow, his dear daughter in Jesus Christ, in a Brief of
the igth November, 1853 : " We felt profound grief on hearing of the 1
premature death of your distinguished husband, and your letter,
which reached Us on the 20th of October last, re-opened Our grief.
But all the zeal and devotion of your dear husband for Our holy religion,
which you justly recall, gives Us a great confidence of his eternal

; ,/

LITERARY WORK 409

salvation. We shall not cease, nevertheless, to aid him with Our
prayers to the God of mercy."

Distinguished strangers are to be seen from time to time in Paris,
bishops, prelates, laymen, who ask to be allowed to visit the burial
place of the founder of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul. They
come from South America, the United States, Canada, Australia, from
countries in Asia and Europe. Some place wreaths at the base of the
simple monument, others give an offering for its upkeep. What all
retain and carry away from their pilgrimage, is the inscription which
they read on the marble slab, the words of the angels to the saints at
the Sepulchre of Christ : " Why seek you the living with the dead ?"
Ozanam, when he quitted this life, left behind him two classes of
works, one literary, the other charitable. We propose to devote a few
lines to the former, a few pages to the latter, to show the scope of each.
Of his great literary work, the history of civilisation through Chris
tianity, scientifically developed in his lectures, splendidly inaugurated
by the publication of his Germanic, then necessarily postponed by the
course of his malady, there only remain outlines in his own notes and
in the shorthand notes of the course ; outlines occasionally brilliant, for
Ozanam could sketch as the most skilled would wish to paint.
His friends, masters, and disciples did their part— a matter of religious
duty for some, of affection for others — to re-construct at least the
portico of the monument, of which some finished pieces had been
given to the Correspondant.

It was the joint work of a number. M. Ampere took the initiative,
assumed the direction, and did the greatest share of it. The Abbe
Noirot, the Abbe Maret, M. de Montalembert, M. Lenormant, M.
Mignet, M. Egger, M. Heinrich collaborated, each in his own particular
sphere of knowledge. That collaboration was carried out with the
co-operation, and under the supervision, of Madame Ozanam. No
name could better guarantee to the reader the scrupulous exactitude
with which the whole work was carried out.

Ozanam's most recent literary composition, Un Pelerinage an pays
du Cid appeared in October, 1853, a month after his death. M.
Hippolyte Rigault, a man of refined taste, reviewed it as follows :
" Those learned and pious pages are a faithful reflex of the two great
passions of the author's soul, God and Science. Inspired as if written
extempore, sad as a farewell, they are a type of that literary career,
which had been commenced with such brilliancy and so soon cut

410 FREDERICK OZANAM

short by death. A destiny touching beyond all others ! M. Ampere
has said with delicacy : In leaving masterpieces unfinished, the beauty
of hope and the sadness of regret are mingled."

The same pen announced the approaching publication of the Complete
Works, called for by the city of Lyons, made possible by a public
subscription, and carried out by the leading members of the French
Academy. The work appeared in 1855, with a Preface by Ampere,
in which he established the order of the volumes of the literary
history in the times of the Barbarians, following Ozanam's own plan,
from his V* Siecle and his Germanic to Francois d' Assise and to
Dante, in the I3th century, leaving a chasm of ten centuries which
remained unbridged. The explorer had fallen at the first stage.

On the 28th of August, 1856, the French Academy awarded to la
Civilisation chretienne au V* siecle thus re-constructed, the prize of
3,000 francs, which had been recently established by M. Bordin with
the formal intention of rewarding work of the " highest literary merit."
It was on that ground especially that " the person and the work of
Ozanam had gained all their votes." M. Villemain, the permanent
Secretary, proclaimed the distinction in the following terms : " Con
sisting of twenty lectures and notes, this outstanding work of literary
taste is the spontaneous product of a mind elevated by the only great
influences in this world, Virtue, Liberty, and Knowledge ; and trans
figured in advance by the glory from on high, which Christian Faith
and Christian Hope promise."

But as the author was no more, the presentation of the Prize to his
wife and child was a new and touching feature. "It was but equit
able," continued the Report, " that the reward which he had deserved,
should be conferred after his death, and should be handed over in full
to those whom he loved dearer than self. The young widow and child
of M. Ozanam will receive as a last gift from his hand, the Prize due
to his rare genius, the unfinished monument to that ardent vocation
which cost them so dear."

The complete works were enriched in 1862 by the addition
of the translation of the Purgatorio. Of the seven years which
Ozanam had devoted to the study and interpretation of the Divina
Commedia, four had been given to the study of the Purgatorio. "A
special predilection attracted Ozanam to those verses which celebrate
the rehabilitation of guilty man, and which are replete with heavenly
consolation and hope." It was in those terms that M. Heinrich

CHARITABLE WORK 4II

introduced that translation to the public, being " homage done to a
dear memory, and gratitude rendered to a master whom he had dearly
loved."

I have compared Ozanam's literary work to an edifice ; I shall
compare his charitable work to a mighty tree, a comparison that has
been drawn many times already. The former, man's work, remains
unfinished when the man disappears ; the latter, which bears within
itself the germ of life planted in it by God, will not cease to increase
when he who planted it shall have disappeared.

The activities of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul are boundless.
I have not been able to devote sufficient attention to them in the course
of this work ; it is now fitting to set them forth, a matter of some little
time. Pere Monsabre spoke of the matter in the following terms to
thousands of members at Notre Dame : " You had outlined for your
selves, gentlemen, at the beginning of your ministry of charity, only
the visitation of the poor in their homes ; and God alone knows how
much the poor owe you for that. But Christian love in contact with
want allows itself to be drawn far beyond its first designs. What do
I not find in your reports for the last half century ? Foundations of
creches and homes, patronages, adoption of orphans, protection of
the forsaken, instruction for street arabs, for apprentices, for children
of workpeople and for children of prisoners ; establishment of clothing
depots and linen workrooms ; savings banks and rent treasuries,
economical public bake-houses, dispensaries, medical and legal aid ;
recreation centres, libraries, schools, Catechism classes and lectures ;
the family, the home, Christian marriage, business matters, sickness,
death, burial of the poor, to what does not your charity extend ?
Whenever a public calamity is announced the whole Society is moved.
It was in hundreds of thousands of francs that it forwarded contribu
tions for the victims of the inundations of the Rhone and the Loire,
of the conflagration at Limoges, of industrial crises, of Syrian massacres
and of Algerian famines."

Notwithstanding all that the preacher had specified he has not
nearly exhausted the list. He has not mentioned work for soldiers,
for prisoners, for the sick, for travellers, for refugees, for repatriating
exiles, Christian trade unions, the secretariat of the people, presents
for the poor, the shy poor, penitentiaries, Holy Families, etc. There
are so many other religious moral, social, civilising societies of which
the Society of St. Vincent de Paul has been the founder, the

412 FREDERICK OZANAM

inspirer, the co-operator ; such as the Catholic Press, Pilgrimages
to the Holy Land, Catholic Committees, Catholic circles of work
men. Then there is the League of Instruction, Peter's Pence,
Leagues of Prayer and of religious defence, etc. Can we ever
forget that during the terrible Seige of Paris, or on the fields
of battle, it carried help and displayed heroism in the service of the
wounded, of the starving, of the prisoners ? The Society of St. Vincent
de Paul, such as Ozanam had conceived, such as it has functioned
for three quarters of a century, is not a local society, it is the Society-
General of Charity. The Society of St. Vincent de Paul is the in
exhaustible mother, fruitful in all good works.

Inexhaustible in the nature of its works, in extent it is universal.
A delegation of four hundred brothers attended the promulgation
of the Dogma of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin in
Rome in 1854, thirteen months after Ozanam's death. The President-
General was able to state, in a report presented at an Audience by
Pope Pius IX., that the Society had established 1,532 Conferences
in twenty- two years, that all were animated with the spirit of their
glorious patron, and were scattered throughout twenty-nine different
States. France and its Colonies counted 889 Conferences, Italy 78,
Germany 160 (of which 134 were in the Kingdom of Prussia), Belgium
148, Holland 92, the British Isles 80. Branches were to be found in
every country in Europe, except Russia, Denmark, Norway and
Sweden. They were beginning to make way in the East. There were
Conferences in Turkey and Egypt. In the New World, Nova Scotia,
the United States, Mexico, Canada, opened their immense territories
to this charity. It was to be found in Australia, having been carried
thither by English-speaking Brothers. There were not less than
50,000 families being visited and assisted. Its turnover, which did
not reach 2,500 francs in its first year, now exceeded 2,500,000 francs
a year.

With its admirable organisation, by the multiplicity and variety
of its services, by the fruit of salvation which it carried within it and
spread around it, by the spirit animating it and the spiritual exercises
which were its driving force, by the moral transformation which
followed everywhere in its footsteps, by the reconciliation of all grades
of society, high and low, the Society appeared that day to Pius IX.
crowned with those works. It was to the foot of the Pontifical Throne
that the Society came in a filial and humble spirit to lay that crown.

KNIGHTS OF JESUS CHRIST 413

Pius IX. was much moved when he arose to deliver an allocution,
which would confer on these new apostles of the charity of Jesus Christ
the same mission that had been given to the twelve : to work miracles
of conversion, curing lepers, restoring sight to the blind, hearing to the
deaf, raising the dead to life. The Abbe Mermillod, who was present at
that audience, reproduced the scene as follows in his own picturesque
way : " Do you remember, gentlemen, the General Meeting at the
Vatican on the 5th of January, 1855, when Pius IX. rose and said :
" My sons, my sons, I consecrate you Knights of Jesus Christ. The
world does not believe in preaching nor in the priesthood, but it still
believes in charity. March on to the conquest of the world through
the love of the poor."

The Society celebrated its Golden Jubilee in May, 1883. After its
suppression by the Imperial Government in 1861 it recovered by
degrees the ground which it had lost. I shall not. re-state the statistics
of Conferences in 1883. Two facts stand out in the Report of M.
Paul Decaux : " Our Bulletin, like our charity, knows no frontiers.
It is published in seven languages : in French at Paris, in English at
Dublin, in German at Cologne, in Italian at Genoa, in Dutch at the
Hague, in Flemish at Ghent, in Spanish at Madrid and at Mexico."
The second fact is apparent from the contrast of the following figures :
" On the ist January, 1855, the number of Conferences had been
1537 anc* tne turn-over had gone up to two and a half million francs.
On the ist January, 1883, the annual Report for the preceding year
showed receipts amounting to close on nine millions." Charity was
over- running the world.

The Golden Jubilee gathering of 1883 brought to Paris from both
hemispheres the most representative gathering which had ever been
seen in the Society. It would have made Ozanam tremble with joy.
Pere Monsabre gave expression to the thought in Notre Dame on the
5th of May : " Jubilemus Deo, let us rejoice in God. Such is the cry
of our heart, gentlemen, after half a century of noble efforts and divine
graces. That cry will bring joy to the thousands of just men, who
belonged to our Society, in the graves in which they are sleeping, or
rather in heaven, whither they have preceded you. ' We have surely
a Conference in Paradise/ wrote Frederick Ozanam, ' for since we
began our work, more than one thousand of our members have gone
the way of the better life/ How many more during fifty years !
Heaven must be en fete."

414 FREDERICK OZANAM

Ozanam was not, of course, present at that meeting ; but Lallier
and Le Taillandier were there to represent him. Italian Brothers
came to greet them.

At the close of that general Congress of Conferences, the Decree
was pronounced by Cardinal Guibert by which Leo XIII., at the
request of the French episcopacy made St. Vincent de Paul patron
of all Societies and Associations of Charity in France, and subsequently
throughout the Universal Church.

In the following year a still greater Act, pronounced ex Cathedra,
bore witness urbi et orbi to the special confidence which the Church
and its Head had in that vast Society of Charity. The Holy Father
opposed its beneficent action to the deadly and impious influence of
Freemasonry and other secret societies. The pontifical Encyclical
Humunum Genus runs as follows : "In this connection, venerable
Brothers, we could not pass over in silence the Society of St. Vincent
de Paul, which has given such admirable examples, and which has
deserved so well of the masses of the people. The efforts of its members
are directed solely to the help of the poor and the unhappy through
charitable works, which they perform with wonderful wisdom, and not
less admirable humility. But the more this Society hides the good
which it is doing, the better suited it becomes to practise Christian
charity and to assuage the misery of men."

Let us complete the account of the rise of the Society by stating
shortly that in 1911-12, when this work was written, if the statistics
of the Society cannot be stated exactly, it can at least be said with
certainty that the number of 100,000 active members has been exceeded.
The number of Conferences throughout the world is 7,500, and the
annual value of the assistance given exceeds fourteen million francs.

God conferred a great grace on the Society founded by Ozanam on
the rock of orthodoxy, in keeping it faithful to truth whole and entire,
through all the tortuous ways, wherein so many minds have been led
astray and lost. On every occasion that Rome has spoken to nations
during the last century, the Society answered at once with submission,
as Vincent de Paul had done in his own day. On the eve of the de
finition of the doctrinal Infallibility of the Pope, the President General
was the first to pledge his faith : " I long ardently for the decision of
the Council," wrote M. Baudon, " convinced beforehand that it can
not be other than true, I subscribe to it blindly. I only ask that it
may be not merely truth, but the whole truth. I cannot admit that

NECESSITY OF THE SOCIETY 4I5

submission is not yielded to it. If some men or some countries do
not see their way to submit, it is because they are not Catholic/'

He had written similarly on the appearance of the Encyclical Quantd
Curd and the Syllabus, condemning some of the tendencies of youth :
' They must give them up. When the Pope takes the trouble to warn
us solemnly to avoid the doctrines condemned by this great Act, it is
our duty to submit, not only in thought but in fact, in the daily practice
of our lives. I have done so, and I believe that God has blessed my
submission for He has shown me truths of the highest order which I
had not hitherto understood."* The Church knows then that she
can count on such men led by such chiefs. I am not surprised that
Pius X., in later times, following the lead given by Leo XIIL, declared
to the Bishops of the New World, as of the old, " that he had no more
ardent desire, than to see the Society of the Brothers of Ozanam and
the sons of St. Vincent de Paul spread throughout the universe."

As a matter of fact this Society never appeared more necessary
than in the present unhappy time, for none answers better to our needs,
and to our numberless ills. In a time of struggle between the classes
and the masses, between the rich and the poor, it reconciles them in
justice and in charity. In a tune of division it creates unity, in a time
of hatred it generates love. You may say, this is a time of the triumph
of democracy ; weU, that Society does more for the good of the people
than you, it knows and understands the people better than you, loves
them better, honours them more, touches them more nearly than
you. You may say this is the reign of Liberty and you wish the Society
to be lay ; it is so. This is the reign of Equality : you speak the word,
it does the thing, bending low before the poor in humility, to raise
them up to God by charity. This is the reign of Fraternity ; the
Society is a family ; the members call one another brother, and those
whom they assist are their brothers. Do you not then see, that this

*Life of Adolph Baudon by the Abbe Schall, p. 389. Ozanam, himself so loyally
and nobly orthodox, must have approved from on high of his friend Lallier on
the following occasion. Notwithstanding ministerial prohibition, the Ency
clical was officially promulgated by Dr. Jolly, Archbishop of Sens, in his own
Cathedral on the 22nd of February, 1865. Lallier, President of the regional
State Court, himself opened a subscription list to present to the courageous
pastor a bust of Pius IX. in Carrara marble. He came himself at the head of the
Catholics of Sens to make the presentation amid the clergy assembled in the great
Seminary. Lallier read an address which is at once a declaration of principle,
a legally framed protest, and a most explicit and strongly-worded profession
of Catholic belief. He had it printed and circulated. Sens, impr. Duchemin,
gr. in-8°, 22 p., 1865.

416 FREDERICK OZANAM

Society is in sympathy with every noble ideal, just as it responds to
every need of the present time ?

It ministers to material needs, moral needs, social needs, but above
all to urgent religious needs which dominate all others. Religion pure
and undented in the sight of God consists in this, says St. James :" To
visit the poor, orphans and widows in their tribulation, and to keep
oneself unspotted from the uncleanness of the time." " To love God
with all one's soul, that is the first commandment," said the Lord ;
" to love one's neighbour as oneself, that is the second, which is like
unto the first. Behold the law and the prophets." Now, is not all
that the Rule, the work, and the end of the Society of St. Vincent de
Paul?

Finally, it does more than unite men to one another, it unites them
to God. As well as being a Society of Charity, it is a society of Faith
and Piety, and a school of Truth. In it men believe and pray and give.
I salute it alternately by the three names of home, sanctuary, and
school for teaching great ideals.

But you may say, it is old ? No, it is not old, if you mean by that
term superannuated, withered; but it is old, meaning thereby ex
perienced, powerful ; old and ever new ; as with all things immortal
and divine. It is, I admit, not modern, in the sense that a thing is
the fashion for a particular time, or in a particular country. But it is,
and continues to be, young with eternal youth, with the youth of
Charity that knows not decay : Caritas non excidit. On its divine
side it dates from the Sermon on the Mount : " Blessed are the Poor " ;
on its human side from Mount St. Genevieve, on which eighty years
ago a few young men of twenty years of age said to themselves, " Let
us do as Jesus Christ did, Let us go to the Poor."

You then who long for Associations of youth, why do you not aim
at rejuvenating it with young recruits ? It was thought out and
constituted originally by young men for young men. You, our leaders
and pastors, who are calling everywhere for the formation of a chosen
band, where will you find elsewhere a more reliable body of men of
faith, of good men, and of men of God ? That chosen band is not
waiting to be created, nor to be born. It exists. It possesses its con
stitution, its organisation, officers and councils, its machinery for
development and expansion. It has proved itself, it has adapted
itself to every good work during the last sixty years ; it has filled the
world with good works. It possesses a history, composed of great

UNITY, STRENGTH, PEACE, AND LOVE 417

benefits conferred and sublime examples given. It has been planted
beside the living waters, it has its roots embedded in the rock. It
has St. Vincent de Paul for a patron, and Ozanam for a model, the
Pope for father, the Church for Queen. It is unity, it would be
strength ; it is peace, it is love. Living everywhere it would be Salva
tion. Let us belong to it, let us go to it, for it goes to the people, it
goes to God, because it does Good, because it wills Happiness, because

it leads on to Heaven.

Gruson, Villa Jeanne d'Arc,
8th December, Feast of Mary Immaculate,
1911 ; 3rd Edition, 23rd April, 1913,
Centenary of the birth of FREDERICK
OZANAM.

A2

APPENDIX

TWO UNPUBLISHED LETTERS OF FREDERICK OZANAM
TO HIS MOTHER.*

PARIS, 2yrd July, 1836.

. . . Apart from private visits, we have a general meeting-
place for seeing each other, viz., our Conferences of charity. Last
Tuesday, the Feast of St. Vincent de Paul, we all assembled in the
morning at Mass, in the Church of the Lazarist Fathers, and in the
evening at M. Bailly's house to hear the reports on the different Works,
to inquire into the state of the various Conferences, etc. The parish
priest, Father Demante, Professor in the Law School, M. Binet,
Professor of Astronomy at the College of France, and a few other
gentlemen, who had been invited for the sake of their offerings, at
tended the meeting. The reports show that the Society comprises
about 200 members visiting 300 poor families, and distributing every
year upwards of 4,000 francs in relief to the poor at their homes in
the four quarters of Paris. Furthermore, we have an apprenticeship
house for the printing trade, where we house, feed, and instruct ten
poor boys, mostly orphans. Some charitable persons contribute
towards the pension for each of them ; nevertheless, the establishment
costs us about 250 francs a month. They are taught printing in M.
Bailly's fine workshops, and some of our members give them lessons
in writing, arithmetic, Bible history, etc. A priest, a friend of ours,
teaches the boys Catechism ; there are, indeed, two of them more
advanced, to whom he teaches a little Latin, which is necessary nowa
days to be engaged as proof reader, and even as a compositor in the
best printing establishments in Paris. These boys are looked after
and cared for by a good man and his wife, who have no children of
their own, and who are delighted with their adopted family. The
husband is employed in an office, the wife has no occupation ; we give
them apartments free and, in addition, a small bonus in money. On
the Feast of St. Vincent de Paul we gave an excursion and a treat to
these little boys which astonished and delighted them. Nevertheless,
when we first founded this work, it seemed to me a great act of madness,
for we had only 180 francs. Providence has provided. Now I am
strongly convinced that in the case of a charitable Work, we should
never be anxious about pecuniary resources, they will always come.

" Some of our colleagues have been appointed by the President of
the Civil Tribunal to visit boys on detention, at the request of

*Taken from the Bulletin of the Society.

420 APPENDIX

their parents. Our Brothers do what they can for them ; they teach
them a few lessons every day, but it is a very hopeless task. Those
unfortunate little fellows are corrupted to the very core, the majority
of them at least, and the time of detention not exceeding three months,
it is impossible to eradicate their bad habits. However, we continue
sowing, leaving to God's care to fructify the seed in His own good time.
If we have no consolations in that direction, we have some in other
ways. For instance, several dying persons were induced to make
their First Communion. Some persons who had been living together
a long time, were led to be married in the church and before the civil
authority.

" I speak to you freely of all those Works because I know they will
interest you, and because I myself have had only a small share in
them. Nevertheless, as the Works are those of my friends, they
belong to me, too, in the sense that we are associated together. In
this business of charity to which they have been pleased to admit me,
I put in a little and take out a great deal. It is not so with Chaurand,
who, not satisfied with taking a very active part in our works, labours
also for others not less worthy.

" The Government and the ecclesiastical authorities have been
informed of the existence of our little Society, and have shown marked
approval of it. We have among our colleagues one peer of France,
noblemen, distinguished artists ; one musician who, a month ago,
drew the whole of London to his concerts ; Government clerks, ex-
St. Simonians, engineers, lawyers in abundance, physicians, students,
small shopkeepers, and even shop-hands. The only two things that
are common to all are youth and rectitude.

" PARIS, Tuesday, nth April, 1838.

" I have again found our last year's works of charity strong and
active, viz., six established Conferences, fourteen boys in the house
of apprenticeship, and ever and always M. Bailly, who does so much
good while appearing to do so little. Last Sunday, the Feast of the
Good Shepherd, was one of the Festivals of the Society. So, in the
morning we assisted at a Mass celebrated at the foot of St. Vincent
de Paul's shrine, by His Grace the Archbishop. We joined in prayer
with our Brothers of Lyons and of the other provinces who were pray
ing at about the same hour. In the middle of the day a lottery was
held in the presence of a brilliant gathering ; it brought in 3,600 francs
for our adopted children. In the evening a general meeting of all the
Conferences was held, at which reports were furnished by the six
Presidents ; accounts were given of our Conferences in the provinces,
and I was the spokesman for Lyons. Matheron was also there. It
was a beautiful and a happy day

APPENDIX 42I

LETTER OF FREDERIC OZANAM TO M. LUCIEN PERRET

ARCHITECT.*

PARIS, ^th April, 1851.
MY DEAR FRIEND,

Madame Ozanam and I wish to thank you for your beautiful present
and the kind letter which accompanied it. You praise too highly
the little we have desired to do, not indeed for you, but for your cata
combs. They are ours, too, or, rather, they belong to all Christians,
and, as such, it is we who ought to be grateful on seeing our Christian
antiquity revived with such distinction by your skilled pencil. When
we visited Rome in 1847, we looked around especially for the early
centuries of the Church, seeking for them in the mosaics, in the
primitive churches, and in the cemeteries of the martyrs ; and we ex
perienced there, especially at St. Agnes', emotions capable of charming
away the greatest and most exquisite grief. There we enjoyed
moments of infinite sweetness, but such moments were fleeting, and
we said to ourselves that they should be seized, for they would return
no more.

You, dear friend, have restored and permanently fixed for us those
dear and sacred hours ! On beholding again, in your delineation, the
pictures ^pf the "Good Shepherd," the "Girl Praying" and the
" Virgin," we have experienced anew that consolation the secret of
which is known only to God and to the Saints. The blessing of God
on you for the good you have done to us and for what you will do
to other souls better than we are.

Your St. Cecilia will remind us of what we owe to your friendship ;
the beautiful head on whose brow is the martyr's crown, this patroness
of Christian art will teach us that we must place at the service of Jesus
Christ everything that could give joy to this earth. Let me tell you
that you anticipated my sweetest thoughts in giving me the picture
of a soul that I know, a soul full of harmony and love whom God has
placed by my side to be the comforter of my life and the inspiration
of my studies.

But I am far removed from St. Valerian. How my weakness keeps
me behind those brave Christian souls of ancient days, behind you, my
dear friend. You pray as well as you draw, so you can add another
precious gift to the one you have already given us by granting me a
place in your prayers. Yes, ask for me peace, peace for a poor heart
that does not belong sufficiently to God, and that will be agitated,
variable and restless until it will have found the peace of your sub
terranean Rome. Adieu, dear friend, I thank you sincerely.

*This letter is an unpublished one. We are indebted for its publication to
the kindness of M. Laurent Laporte, Frederic Ozanam 's son-in-law. (From
the Bulletin of the Society).

422 APPENDIX

TO HIS BROTHER CHARLES.*

April 20, 1840.
MY DEAR BROTHER,

After three days' travelling and a halt of twenty-four hours at
Sens with my friend Lallier, I arrived at Paris on Holy Thursday in
rather good condition. My room was waiting for me, and it was soon
full of old acquaintances, who celebrated my arrival right cordially.
I spent the solemn days with \his little familiar group, and yesterday,
Easter Sunday, I was at the common try sting-place of all those that
are dear to me, in the arms of Him before Whom Lyons, Rome, and
Paris are all one, embracing in His immense love the living and the
dead. I was then intimately united with you, with Alphonsus, with
my aunt and all hers, with my poor and well-beloved parents, all
united together under the kiss of peace of the Lord

Good-bye, my dear brother. Persevere in that wisdom and good
ness which form our joy : serious application as regards the intellect ;
brotherly friendship as regards the heart ; and above all, piety,
religion, virtue. There you have in few words your own happiness
and ours.

March 18, 1850.

Enjoy, my dear friend, these grand sights (Vesuvius, Naples, etc.).
How we should wish, Amelie and I, to repeat, in your company, the
trip to Vesuvius, and tread under foot the lava, the ashes and the fire,
to turn round once again and look on the sparkling sea, the windings
of the bay, the islands that give it life. Above all, how we should
wish to follow you on the day when you will have the honour of kissing
the feet of the Vicar of Jesus Christ. Oh ! put us together with your
self at his knees ; ask of him his most affectionate blessing for a family
in which, you can tell him, he is tenderly loved. If he speaks to you
of France, and above all of the youth in the schools, answer with
brevity and modesty, as a young man to whom it does not belong to
judge. But try, above all, to make it clear that our country is better
than its reputation ; refer to the Conferences of St. Vincent de Paul,
the sermons of Notre Dame, everything that proves that amongst us
faith and charity are alive. Be sure to tell the Sovereign Pontiff of
the tremor of pious eagerness that shook all that Christian youth last
year, when it was believed that the Pope was coming to France, and
with what joy they shall see him restored to Rome and taking up
again the blessed work of his first years.

It is certain that on Easter Sunday the Pope will give, either at
Naples or at Portici, the blessing " Urbi et Orbi." Do not miss that
beautiful ceremony.

* Extracts taken from the Bulletin of the Society and published with the kind
permission of Ozanam's family.

APPENDIX 423

April 6, 1850.

„ On the other hand, to all those who will speak to you of

France, say that the country is not lost ; and that in this city in which
the late elections caused such consternation, Easter was celebrated
with extraordinary calm and a wonderful increase of faith and

July 21, 1850.

This letter seems to have* been interrupted and delayed

purposely in order to convey to you a sad piece of news. Monsieur
Falconnet, Sen., has just died at Bourg at the age of 66 years. Thus
our family is disappearing, and those who knew and loved our children.
What a warning not to attach ourselves to things here below and to
have our eyes fixed on the last meeting-place ! But still, this de
tachment from the world must not be turned into discouragement
about our duties. In that consists the whole secret and the whole
difficulty of the Christian life. We must think as if we were to quit
the earth to-morrow, and we must work as if we were never to leave
it. We must respect the earth as the workshop of Providence, and our
particular employment as the task which has been assigned to us.
This is the means for bearing with its inequalities, with the moments
of trial, and for avoiding a certain kind of depression which sometimes
is concealed under the guise of piety itself.

SAN-JACOPO,

May 20, 1853.

.... This does not mean that Providence is forsaking me or that
I have reason for complaining of the Italians. On the contrary, if I
had not left my country so long ago, if I had the certainty of seeing
it soon again, it would be impossible for me to find a place of residence
more agreeable and more hospitable. We have not the ocean as at
Biarritz, but we have an admirable sea which changes several times
a day ; the sky, which has long maltreated us, gives us at present
perfectly beautiful days, an excellent sun, tempered with fresh breezes ;
a landscape green and flowery, in which the orange tree and the laurel
grow naturally, whilst enormous tufts of aloes rear their threatening
stems. There, I have no need of a carriage for taking an excursion ;
I walk about two hours in the day, at three intervals, without counting
the halts and the moments I spend seated on the rocks looking at the
waves coming in. When, by tunes, we decide to trust ourselves to
the luxury of a carriage, it brings us in a few moments to some charm
ing spot, always beside the sea, where there are paths sheltered from
the wind by great bushes all adorned with roses. This place is rightly
called Ardenza, and every inhabitant of Leghorn, who is properly
reared, considers himself bound to take a drive there every evening.
Further away on the mountain is the pilgrimage of Montenero : we

424 APPENDIX

went there only once. I could not think of climbing on foot this
steep way ; carriages for getting up there cost very dear. Still we
could not remain behind the good Christians of the country, who all
go to make a visit there in the month of May. It is the Fourviere of
Leghorn, but a Fourviere all shining with marble, gilding, silver
lamps, magnificent votive offerings. Nevertheless, beside the gifts
offered by the gratitude of the rich, we see with emotion the offerings
of the poor : a number of pictures representing fishermen in distress,
a lot of old clothes, crutches and sticks. Oh ! how glad I would have
been to hang my stick also in this sanctuary, and come down on foot ;
but I have not the lively faith which obtains miracles. The whole
family, including Marie, took part in the excursion, and came back
with their hands full of pictures and medals, thanks to the kindness
of the Father Abbot, who in his desire to give a good welcome to the
Signor Professor, and to make us admire his marbles and his lamps,
left us scarcely time to say our rosary.

We have no longer our friends of Pisa, and I regret it ; still the
librarian, Monsieur Ferrucci, has already come to see us twice. But,
above all, we have found at Leghorn excellent persons, a Conference
of St. Vincent de Paul with all the daring of beginners, and amongst
the members of this Conference, two brothers, Messrs. Bevilacqua,
whose name will remain in our hearts as that of two accomplished
Christians worthy of the first centuries. One can have no idea of
such charity. They are young men, learned, distinguished, one of
them employed as an architect, the other in the Customs house, both
of them very active visitors of the poor. Together with all this, they
have found time to seek out lodgings for us. At present they come
to see us every night, only for three-quarters of an hour, in order not
to tire me. They take charge of our letters and our messages for the
town ; they have obtained for us a goat which serves as my nurse ;
two or three times a week they send to Amelie enormous bunches of
flowers ; they give Marie pictures and little books ; they come with
their sister to take her out to visit little friends. In a word, they
overwhelm me with their kindness, and when I say it is too much, they
answer : " Oh ! sir, the Society of St. Vincent de Paul has done so
much good, that we could never do enough for one of its founders."
There was no use in my protesting that the first founders never thought
of Leghorn, and that we were the useless instruments of Providence.
They will not lessen their attentions to us. It is a family tenderness
which extends to everything around me, and if Marie were nine years
older, I should not be sure of bringing her back with me. I have
always thought humbly of our Society of St. Vincent de Paul, but
really I am on the point of changing my views about it, and con
ceiving a great idea of it since I have seen at Bayonne, and here, what
wonders of Christian brotherhood it is capable of inspiring. Besides,
we are making great progress in Tuscany. There are here more than

APPENDIX 425

three hundred members, active or honorary, in five Conferences.
On Sunday last the Conference of Florence celebrated its aggregation
by a General Communion ; it counts among its members men of great
distinction, whilst at Pontedera another Conference, exclusively
composed of shopkeepers, does unlimited good by maintaining a
night-school.

We have at San- Jacopo a parish priest who is very amiable and very
literary, knowing French, but too humble to consent to speak it, so
that these ladies are obliged to carry the burdens of their consciences
to Leghorn. They found there Dominican Fathers who no longer
speak French, though one of them, Pere Vincenzo, made his novitiate
at La Quercia with Pere Lacordaire, Pere Aussat, and Pere Tandel.
Fortunately, there are Vincentians, whose Superior, the Abbe Mazzucco,
is sufficiently at home in our language to understand the crimes of
Madame Soulacroix, of Madame Ozanam, and even of little Marie.
As for myself, I make use of either language as may be desired. I
had the audacity to speak in Italian to all the Conferences, and at
Florence my address, edited by a brother full of talent, so pleased the
readers, that it was considered I wrote Tuscan almost like Dante.
In consequence, with the help of my Franciscan Poets, I was named
a member of the De La Crusca Academy. Though I should be quite
dead to the world, this distinction gave me great pleasure, for it is
not bestowed on many. I was nominated together with the Count
Cesare Balbo, one of the most esteemed and most learned men in
Piedmont, and one of the heads of the Liberal Catholic School. I was
very flattered at finding myself in such good company, and what
completes my satisfaction, I succeed as a Frenchman to M. Fauriel,
who also was very highly complimented at belonging to the same
Academy, to which he had been raised through his friendship with
Manzoni. If God allows me to return to literary life, that title, the
most honourable that can be had in Italy, will not be without use for
me for the Institute.

These are sufficient vanities for a man who thought himself dead
a month ago, and who is not yet convalescent ....

426 APPENDIX

ON THE NUMBER OF MEMBERS IN THE FIRST
CONFERENCE.*

Names of the First Members :

Frederick Ozanam, Paul Lamache, Jules Devaux, Francois "Lallier,
Auguste Le Taillandier, Felix Clave* and Monsieur Bailly.

In the absence of written documents (for at that time they did not
keep or preserve minutes or official statements) opinions have long
differed as to the exact number of members present at the first two
or three meetings. Ozanam, in particular, owing to his familiarity
with the scholastic philosophers, protested modestly and playfully
when later on members spoke before him of the seven founders of the
Society of St. Vincent de Paul : " Oh ! my good friend," said he to
Devaux, who, on meeting Ozanam in Rome, recalled very dear
memories, " let us not stop at the number seven, because there are
people who would see mystic significance in that too ! Is not seven
the number of the Sacraments?"

Such little attention was paid to the details of the opening meeting,
that in the Diary of a member of the first Conference, written down
daily from March, 1834 f°r several months, the date of the foundation
of the Conference was placed in " June or July, 1833 (instead of May],
and the Diarist stated that he " believed there were eight or ten
members at that time " (instead of seven).

The Abbe Gellon, in a work, " Three Precursors of the Catholic
Revival, Lacordaire, the Abbe Perreyve, Frederick Ozanam," led
astray by a statement, which was customary with Ozanam himself,
believed and recorded that our first members were eight in number.

Finally, Monsignor Baunard, the author of the Magnum opus, is
not sure in his work of the exact number, and wavers between seven
and eight.

According to every account, if we include M. Bailly, the first members
of the first Conference were seven in number. Their names were —
Frederick Ozaman, Paul Lamache, Jules Devaux, Francois Lallier,
Auguste Le Taillandier, Felix Clave and Monsieur Bailly, [de Lanzac
de Laborie, Secretary-General of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul].

It is hoped that this considered statement of M. Lanzac de Laborie,
who as Secretary-General of the Society, had special opportunities
of reference, and who took special pains to verify them, will now
definitely prevail, and that every member of the Society will know
that the first founders of original Conference of the Society of
St. Vincent de Paul were seven in number, and that their names
were as above stated.

* Notes taken from the Bulletin of the Society.

BAUNARD, Louis.

OzamuR in his

correspondence.

BQ
7091

B3