FORTY-SEVENTH VOLUME

GASTON DE SEGUR
 HAVERSTOCK HILL NW
PRINTED BV THE SOCIETY OF ST ANNE

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GASTON DE SEGUR

A BIOGRAPHY

Condensed from the French Memoir

BY
THE MARQUIS DE SEGUR

BY

F J MA PARTRIDGE

LONDON
BURNS AND OATES
GRANVILLE MANSIONS W
1884
2 DEC
 DOMINUS ILLUMINATIO MEA

ET SALUS MEA

QUEM TIMEBO

DOMINUS PROTECTOR VIT.E MEM

A QUO TREPIDABO

(Psalm xxvij
 PREFACE.

The following work, like some others which have

appeared in the same Series, is neither an original nor
a translation. It has been freely condensed from
the extremely interesting work of the Marquis de Segur,
Souvenirs d'un Frere. It is hoped however, that nothing
of importance in the life of Mgr. de Segur has been
passed over, and that these pages may serve to place
before English Catholics the main features of the
career of one of the noblest souls of our time, whom
most of us must often have heard of, and whom some
may have had the privilege of knowing.
Force and simplicity were the characteristics of
Gaston de Segur. His life was one of singular de
votion, energetic piety, and Christian manliness, and
His Master loved him too much not to give him a
large share of the Cross. He bore it in a manner that
ensured his sanctification, while at the same time he
made it only one reason more for exerting himself to
the utmost in the cause of religion and charity. The
large fruits which were gathered in for the glory of
God and the good of souls by this ' Blind Apostle'
form the most significant and consoling features of a
saintly career.
H. J. C.
in Mount Street :
Feast of St. Mary Magdalene, 1884.
 CONTENTS.

PAGE
Chapter I. Chapter II.
Childhood, Youth and First years of Priesthood.
Early Manhood. Gaston de Segur's first
Mass .... 20
Birth of Gaston de Segur 1 In the Rue Cassette 21
School days ... 2 Gaston at the Abbaye 21
Mother and Son . . 3 Letter from a forcat . 22
First Communion . . 4 Sergeant Herbuel 23
Countess Rostopchine's Execution of Guth . 24
letter .... 5 Andre Chopart 25
M. Delaroche's studio . 6 First letter from Chopart 25
Gaston joins the Con Second letter from
ference of St. Vincent Chopart 30
de Paul ... 7 Chopart's letter from
An incident in the Guiana .... 32
Hospital ... 8 Last letter from Chopart 33
Madame Rostopchine . 9
Gaston attache to the Chapter III.
Roman Embassy . 10
Art-studies . . n Priest's work in Paris.
The deaf Englishman . 12 Patronage labours . 35
Pere de Villefort . . 13 First Paschal Retreat 36
Vow in the Chapel of the Cercles Catholiques . 38
Gesu .... 14 The boys in the Rue
Grief of his Mother . 14 Cassette 39
Letter from Pere de Letter from Mgr. de
Villefort ... 16 Conny 40
X CONTENTS.

PAGE
Illness .... 42
Examen of Conscience . Chapter V.
43
Rule of life . #. - 44
The Reponses . 46 The Vatican, the Tuileries and
A First Check . 46 Saint Sulpice.
The lost M.S. 47 Events in France
The 'Little Readings' . 48 Private audience with 71
The Swedish Artist . 49
Family Ministrations Pius IX. 72
51 The Organic Articles
Letter to the Marquis on 74
his marriage . 52 The Roman Liturgy
restored at Saint
Sulpice .... 75
Letter from the Superior. 78
Chapter IV. The Emperor and the
Catechism . 80
Loss of one eye 81
In Rome. The Blessed Sacrament
in Mgr. de Segur's
View of the Coup d'Etat 55 Chapel .... 83
Office of Auditor ,of the His spirit of resignation . 84
Rota .... 56 Total blindness 87
Appointment offered to Letter to Mgr. Pie . 88
Gaston .... 57 Mgr. de Segur's view of
Audience with the his blindness 89
President 58 Hopes of his friends 91
Letter to Mgr. de Conny 59 Letter from his Grand
The Abbe Gibert's mother .... 92
postscript 60 Return to Rome
A workman's letter . 60 Death of a cousin . 93
M. de Segur goes to Rome 61 The Pope at the Cholera 94
Mgr. de Merode 62 Hospital
Mgr. Bastide . 63 Letter from Mgr. Bastide 95
Work among the soldiers 64 Cross of the Legion of 95
A soldier's letter 65 Honour ....
M. Klingenhoffen . 97
66
Evenings at the Palazzo
Brancadoro . 68
At the Schools of the Chapter VI.
Christian Brothers 69 Apostolate in Paris.
Two Seminarians . 69
Pictures illustrating the Return to Paris 99
Beatitudes . 70 Canonry of Saint-Denys . 99
 CONTENTS.

PAGE
Letter to M. Diringer . 100 Reparation 130
Methol .... 101 The anniversary of the
Letter to him . . . 102 sacrilege 131
The house in the Rue du Mgr. Darboy . 132
Bac .... 103 Interview with the
Order of Life . . . 104 Archbishop . 132
Patronage of the Rue de Suspension 134
Grenelle . . . 106 The question settled 134
Mgr. de Segur and the Letter from the Marquis 135
Artistes . . . 108 A tract placed on the
The children's Conference 109 Index 137
Athanase Rousselle . . no Submission 137
Dangers and Temptations in Extract from Mgr. de
Ecclesiastical Vocations . 112 Mermillod's funeral
Advice on Vocations . 113 oration .... 138
The Clerics of Saint-
Sulpice . . . .114
Association of St. Francis Chapter VIII.
de Sales . . .115
Growth of the Work . 117 Labours for the Sick and the
Visit to Annecy . . 118 Army.
Mgr. de Segur a tertiary
of St. Francis 139
Chapter VII. The Brothers of St. John
of God . 139
Mission-Work and Trials. Pierre Sazy 140
The House at Vaugirard 141
Giuvre of the Faubourgs 120 Illness and cure of
The First Mission . . 121 Madame de Segur 142
Success of the Work . 122 The Freemason 142
What might have been . 124 Cure of a blind child 144
Visit to M. Dupont . . 125 The Vatican Council J45
Visit to Ars . . 126 Some remarkable coin
M. Vianney and Methol . 127 cidences 146
The blessings of a Cross . 127 Letter to the Seminarians
Sabine de Segur and her of Montmorillon .
Community . . . .128 Mgr. de Segur writes to H7
CEuvre of the Sanctuary- the Count de Chambord 148
lamps .... 129 The Abbe Diringer and
Restoration of the the German prisoners . 148
Church of Aube . . 129 In Paris after the Com
A confession of sacrilege . 130 mune . . - - 149
xii CONTENTS.

PAGE PAGE
Last visit to Les Nouettes 150 Rest in Brittany 162
CEuvre de l'Alsace- The second warning 162
Lorraine . . .150 The Last Mass 163
Military Chaplains . . 152Partings with his family . 165
Fruit in Paris . . . 153The death-bed of an
Death of Madame de Apostle .... 165
Segur .... 154 Farewell to friends . 166
A new CEuvre . . Working to the last .
155 167
Letter to the Congress of M. Ingigliardi . 167
Angers . . . .156Death of Mgr. de Segur . 168
A devoted Physician 168
Chapter IX. The Abbe' Diringer's
Mass .... 169
Last Days. The funeral Cortege . 170
The Churchyard of
Trials and Consolations . 158 Pluneret 170
Friendship with Gounod . 1 59 The epitaph 171
Death of the Bishop of Graces and cures 171
Poitiers . . .160 Mgr. de Segur's Will 173
First attack of congestion 161

I
 CHAPTER I.

Childhood, Youth, and Early Manhood.

Gaston de Segur was born in Paris on the 15th
of April, 1820. He was the eldest child of his
parents, the Comte and Comtesse de Segur, and
was welcomed into the world with great rejoicing,
not only by them but by his grand-parents, all of
whom were living at the time. His maternal
grandfather, in particular, Count Rostopchine, was
made very proud and happy by this first grandchild,
who was, indeed, an important person at that time,
when peerages were hereditary in France. In a
letter to his son-in-law, when the heir of the house
was barely a year old, the grandfather begs "to
kiss the feet of Gaston, the premier paladin of
Christendom."
Nothing in the traditions of his family, in the
spirit of the age, nor in his early training, contained
a prophecy of Gaston de Segur's future. But we
may well believe that it was influenced in no small
degree by the prayers of his holy grandmother, the
Countess Rostopchine, who was also his godmother,
and to whose counsels and example he attributed a
large share in the great work of his conversion.
B
 GASTON DE SEGUR.

Gaston was placed, when hardly more than an

infant, at a school, the solitary merit of which, ac
cording to his biographer, was the pure air in which
it was situated. Till the law of 1850, the best that
could be done was to choose an establishment not
positively bad. It is not then wonderful that, in
spite of the blessing of a Christian home, Gaston's
school-days, both at this time and later on in Paris,
bear no mark whatever of the supernatural. The
two strongest feelings of his nature were love for
his mother, so strong as to be almost a passion,
and love for painting, which would doubtless have
been his vocation, had not God chosen him for
higher things. Indeed, drawing became before
long his chief occupation, and encroached so largely
on the time supposed to be devoted to his studies,
as to be a fruitful source of impositions. These
last, however, he frequently induced his masters to
commute for a portrait or a sketch, a plan which,
no doubt, possessed the rare merit of pleasing all
parties, but which can hardly have had the effect of
weaning the culprit from the illicit pleasure.
From his earliest childhood, the boy's love for his
mother was characterised by a strength and a deli
cacy which are remarkable. At eight years old,
when his brother is about to join him at school, he
writes to her that he is both glad and sorry—glad
because I shall see him—sorry because he will not
see you." Thoughtful tenderness for her breathes
in every line of his boyish letters. He asks her to
 YOUTH. 3

be more prudent about her health, not to treat his

letters as a joke, but to remember that her future
belongs to her children. When the little sister,
Olga, begins to run alone, he rejoices that now
his mother need not make her arms ache with
carrying her. He envies two of his friends who
are leaving school because they will be with their
mother, "the best mother but one in the world."
Only once is there the shadow of a cloud between
the mother and son. The boy had not been quite
frank about some trifling matter, and the Countess,
prizing as she must have done the great treasure
of her child's confidence, writes to reprove him
with what seems almost too great severity. Gaston's
reply begins by thanking her for her letter and for
her advice : he acknowledges his fault with child
like simplicity, asks her pardon in all humility,
and ends with an assurance that he loves her
better than ever, " if that is possible." How
many lads of seventeen, on the point of leaving
school, would receive a rebuke for a far graver
fault in such a spirit ? But in all these letters,
so charming in their affection and unselfishness,
there is no trace whatever of religious principle.
They are the outcome of a sweet and generous
nature, but the Christian spirit is altogether latent.
During all the long period, twelve years, of
Gaston de Segur's school-life, there seems to have
been but one event which was distinctly Christian.
But then that exception was his First Communion !
4 GASTON DE SEGUR.

He was prepared for that great act by the cure of

the village where his first school was situated, a
good and zealous priest, who did his utmost for
God in evil days and in a difficult position, and for
whom Mgr. de Segur always cherished a filial
affection. The venerable old man, when more than
eighty years old, was a frequent and honoured guest
at his table, and it was to the sincere piety with
which he received his God for the first time that
Gaston always ascribed the grace of his conversion.
This last event took place in the year 1838, when
his grandmother Rostopchine came to pass the
summer at Les Nouettes, the happy country home
of the Segur family. Gaston was there for his
vacation, and seems to have yielded instantly to the
holy attraction exercised over him by that great
soul, and from this moment he determined to
give himself altogether and for ever to God.
His family noticed and wondered at the change
in him. It was a complete transformation. He
prepared by a general confession for the Com
munion which he had resolved should be the
beginning of a new life, and on the feast of our
Lady's Nativity, in the lowly church of the little
parish of Aube, "Jesus Christ," to borrow the
words of the Marquis de Segur, "entered his
soul as' a Conqueror Who was never again to
leave it."
The following extract from a letter addressed to
her grandson by the Countess Rostopchine on his
 YOUTH. 5

entering the Seminary, seems to come in naturally

at this point of Gaston's life :

My good and dear godson,—I am not sure that

you are not mistaken in giving me credit for so large
a share in the work of your return to the truth. That
truth, either through your own fault or that of your
instructors, was unknown to you, but the love of it
was in your heart, though unconsciously, up to the
moment when a ray of it was revealed to you by the
Infinite Goodness. You followed it at once ; I found
the faith planted in you, the mustard-seed watered,
and as God makes use of men to help His children,
I said something to you of what I had learnt myself,
a good deal later than you,1 and introduced you to
some good books, but I should not have done or
helped on anything, if God had not already under
taken the work Himself. My numerous failures in
regard to others prove to me what an empty sound the
human voice is, by itself. Prayer is a help, no doubt,
but only to. those whose dispositions do not make
prayer powerless. My success is due to your disposi
tions, and those dispositions were the fruit of God's
grace.

Gaston's time was now divided between his family,

his art, and works of charity. He found out a way
of practising these last even when, from time to time,
in order to please his mother, he appeared in society,
and looked out for girls without friends, with
1 Madame Rostopchine was a convert from the Greek Schismatic
Church.
6 GASTON DE SEGUR.

whom he danced " charity-dances." Many of his

evenings were passed in his grandmother's room,
and conversation went on pleasantly while he drew.
But before long a weakness in the eyes obliged him
to lay aside his pencil—it was the first warning of
the trial which was to be the sanctification of his life.
This first attack was soon over, and after a short
rest, Gaston began to attend Delaroche's studio, but
the freedom of manners and conversation, and the
necessity of working from nude models so disgusted
him, that after a few months, with many regrets, he
broke off his studies there. His models, chiefly
children and old men, used to come to his rooms to
sit. We are told that while judges of art gave
high praise to the heads, hands, and feet of his
figures, they missed the play of the muscles, the
accuracy of form which should have been evident
under the drapery. An amusing incident of this is
related with regard to a portrait which he painted
of Pius the Ninth between SS. Peter and Paul, on
examining which the Pope exclaimed : " Why, this
good M. de Segur has forgotten to give us any
shoulders ! "
Gaston de Segur continued to be on intimate
terms with Delaroche, who was always ready to
advise him. He was a frequent visitor at his house,
and a great favourite with the artist's charming wife,
of whom he used to speak as of an angel whom
God had allowed to spend a short time on earth.
Gaston's favourite subjects, as might be supposed,
 YOUTH. 1

were religious, but he had a gift for portrait -painting,

and, it must be confessed, for caricatures. He was
careful, however, not to pass the limits of harmless
fun, and if now and then his keen sense of the
ridiculous carried him too far, the mischievous
production Was speedily destroyed.
But while cultivating the talent God had given
him, and attending conscientiously to the studies
which were to prepare him for his future career,
Gaston's heart was given to God and His poor.
The Conference of St. Vincent de Paul to which he
belonged numbered many fervent members, among
whom was Pierre Olivaint. One beautiful practice
they had adopted was to make pilgrimages to the
well-nigh deserted churches in the neighbourhood of
Paris, going to hear Mass in parties of three or four,
now in one, now in another, with the holy intention
of re-kindling the faith of the people, and bringing
hope and comfort to their discouraged pastors.
Gaston had a particular affection for the aged
poor, and they in their turn, welcomed his visits as
they did those of a sunbeam to their miserable
garrets. Long years after this time, the mere
mention of his name was enough to light up the
faces of the old friends he used to visit. His usual
associate in hospital visiting was young Olivaint,
with whom he took days and hours in turn,
true precursors of our Lord for Whose coming
to the souls of the sick and dying they prepared
the way.
8 GASTON DE SEGUR.

One incident of his hospital visiting we give in

his own words :
The ward I had to visit that day was under the
charge of a Sister of Charity, who had grown old in
this admirable work, and was as unwearied in soothing
the sufferings of her patients as she was zealous for
the good of their souls. ' Go to No. 39,' she said to
me, ' a man of two or three-and-thirty, in the last
stage of consumption, who has only a day or two to
live. I can do nothing with him, try as I may—nor
the Chaplain either, and one of your brothers of
St. Vincent de Paul (it was Pierre Olivaint) has suc
ceeded no better. He will very likely send you about
your business, but all the same we must try every
thing—it is a poor soul to be saved.'
' Oh, my dear Sister, if he sends me about my
business I must just go, that is all—it will do me no
harm. Only say a Hail Mary for the poor fellow while
I speak to him.'
When I came to his bed he fixed his eyes on me
without speaking. I asked him how he felt—no
answer. ' Are you in much pain just now ? Can I do
anything for you?' Not a word. Things were be
coming embarrassing, the man's looks were more and
more threatening, and I expected him to say something
abusive. All at once God, in His Providence, sent
me an inspiration.
I came close to the poor fellow and whispered, ' Did
you make a good First Communion ? ' The effect was
like an electric shock—his expression changed, and he
murmured rather than said : ' Yes, sir.' ' Well, my
 MADAME ROSTOPCHINE. 9

friend, and were you not very happy in those days ? '
Again he said, ' Yes, sir,' in a trembling voice, and I
saw two big tears roll down his cheeks.
I took his hands in mine : ' And why were you
happy then, but because you were innocent and
chaste—because you feared God—in a word, because
you were a good Christian ! That happiness may be
yours again ; the good God has not changed.' He
continued to weep. ' You will make your confession,
will you not ? ' ' Yes, sir,' he answered firmly, holding
out his arms to me. I embraced him with all my
heart and gave him a little advice to help him in his
good resolution. Then I left him, and went to tell the
Sister of my unexpected success.

This was the first soul, so far as we know, which

Gaston de Segur won to God.
As soon as his studies were completed, Gaston
paid a long visit to the Countess Rostopchine at
the palace near Moscow, made memorable by the
act of her late husband, who burnt down the original
building with his own hands, that it might not fall
into the hands of Napoleon. It had been rebuilt,
and here the widow passed most of her life in retire
ment and prayer. The intimate intercourse during
two months with this strong and holy soul was not
only a spiritual consolation, but a real help in the
spiritual life. Madame Rostopchine was a wonder
ful woman in many ways ; and her strength of
character, profound learning, and austere life, made
her more like a Christian of the age and the stamp
10 GASTON DE SEGUR.

of St. Paula and Olympias than a pious woman of

the nineteenth century.
Gaston returned to France only to prepare for
another journey ; this time to Rome, where his
father, anxious to give scope to his artistic vocation,
had obtained for him the post of attache to M. de
Latour-Maubourg, the French Ambassador at the
Holy See, and an old friend of the family. Before
leaving France he was told that a portrait of his
father which he had exhibited was judged worthy
of the gold medal—a great honour for a young
artist. On his return from Rome in 1843 his
mother placed the medal in his hands, and he kept
it for a month or two, before entering the Seminary,
as a souvenir of his brief art-career. But, pressed
by the charity of Christ, the one Love of his heart,
he sold the medal before long, and to Christ, in the
person of His poor, he gave the price.
The year which followed was—need it be said ?—
a very happy one to the young Christian artist ; his
colleagues, too, all agreeable, and several brilliant
and distinguished, were men of whom he always
retained an affectionate remembrance. There was
the Comte de Rayneval, first secretary to the
Embassy, and afterwards the courageous advocate
of the union of the French government with the
Holy See. He was a first-rate musician, and a
brilliant performer, a great attraction to a lover of
music like Gaston, and they were soon fast friends.
We can do no more than mention the names of
 ROME. 11

Just de Latour-Maubourg, the nephew of his chief,

a frank bright spirit who was the life of the circle ;
of the Baron de Malaret, an old friend of his
childhood and his future brother-in-law, and of the
brilliant but eccentric Comte de Cambise.
Gaston's duties Were light enough and left him
plenty of leisure for society and for the paintings
and other treasures of Rome. We will just glance
at his artistic occupations and tastes, otherwise our
sketch would lack some characteristic touches, since
with Gaston de Segur, next to the service of God—
needless to say, after a long interval—came the love
and study of his favourite art. Every day he visited
some museum or gallery, public or private. Among
the antique statues of the Vatican, we learn that
he most admired the Demosthenes, which he pre
ferred even to the Apollo Belvedere and the
Laocoon. He never could care for Michael Angelo's
Moses, whose grand proportions and majestic limbs
did not reconcile him to the lack of a supernatural
and religious expression. His favourite painter was
Perugino, some of whose Madonnas he considered
even more heavenly than his great pupil's, but he
used to say, for all that, that he believed the
Madonna di Foligno to be the first picture in the
world. The Marquis thinks that he might have
said the second, had he ever seen the Madonna di
San Sisto.
All this time his pencil was not idle. His talent
for caricature proved something of a cross, as bon
 GASTON DE SEGUR.

gre mal gre he had to devote most of the evenings

spent at the Embassy to its exercise. The Ambas
sadress, her friends, the other attaches, all clamoured
for something, and the young artist found it some
times anything but easy to indulge his sense of
humour without offending against charity. He made
numerous sketches of a more serious character, and
painted one or two large pictures. One of these,
a shepherd-lad, studied from nature, his brother
considers his best work—and thereby hangs the
following tale.
The day after the closing of the Exhibition, where
this picture had been much admired, a very deaf
Englishman, whose French was hard to understand,
called at the house of Madame de Segur and asked
to see the artist. He was out, so the visitor was
received by one of Gaston's brothers. On being
shown into the salon the first thing the Englishman
saw was the picture. He stood before it in mute
admiration for some time, and then enquired the
price. He was told that it was not for sale, but it
was some time before he gave up the struggle—he
begged it to be understood that he was a very rich
man, that he really must have that picture and
that he cared nothing what he paid. When at
length he was obliged to go, he insisted on leaving
his address in case the family should think better
of it. At this time Gaston had resolved to enter
the Seminary, and the Marquis thinks that had he
been at home he would have taken the Englishman
 PERE DE VILLEFORT. 13

at his word and made him pay very dear for the
picture, the price of which would have gone to the
poor.
M. de Segur was deeply impressed by the grand
figure of Gregory XVI—but he scarcely saw him
except during public functions and ceremonies, so
that he could not feel for him the devoted personal
affection and filial tenderness with which his suc
cessor inspired him.
His most cherished friend in Rome, and the one
who made his vocation to the priesthood clear to him,
was Pere de Villefort, of the Society of Jesus, the
friend, guide, and director of all the French who
visited the tomb of St. Peter, whether as pilgrims
or mere travellers. Prejudices against the Society
were rife at the time, but they were always laid
aside in the case of this Jesuit, often, it may be
remarked, the only one the objector had ever
known. From the first, Gaston de Segur gave him
his full confidence, but neither director nor penitent
was disposed to act hastily, and there was, for
several months, no outward sign of any change of
plan. Two events hastened matters, a serious ill
ness and a pilgrimage to Loreto. Gaston fell sick
at a time when Rome was nearly empty, and the
French Embassy nearly deserted, so that the young
attache might have fared ill but for the charity of a
French priest, the Abbe Veron, who heard of his
state, had him moved to his own quarters, and
nursed him with the greatest devotion. He con
 GASTON DE SEGUR.

tinued the guest of the good Abb6 till his health

was quite restored, and the counsels and example of
his new friend, together with the silent but
powerful influence of sickness and suffering,
combined to help on the work already begun in
his soul.
It was early in September when a friend who,
like Gaston, had one foot in and the other out of
the world, asked him to join him in a journey to
Perugia, Assisi, and Loreto, and he left the sanc
tuary of the Holy House no longer his own, but
pledged for ever in heart and soul to Christ. Three
months later, at the Christmas midnight Mass in the
Gesu, Gaston de Segur bound himself by a vow of
perpetual chastity, and solemnly promised to
follow his holy vocation. He was not quite twenty-
three years old, and for four years, since his conver
sion at Aube, he had led a life of Christian holiness
and penance.
He wrote at once to announce his resolution to
his parents. Perhaps the severest trial of his life
was the anguish, almost despair, of his mother on
learning it. Good and pious as she was, she was
so blinded by her passionate affection for him, that
she could not believe in his vocation, which she
persisted in regarding as a delusion sure to pass
away, and she did all in her power to shake his
determination. Letter followed letter, filled with
love so intense, and supplications so heart-breaking,
that Gaston, although he never wavered, was
 ECCLESIASTICAL VOCATION.

almost crushed by the thought of the pain he was

causing to the mother he adored. He never dared
to open her letters till he was on his knees before
the Blessed Sacrament, and there he read them, he
said, '-as one would read the last will of a dying
mother," It was very long before Madame de
Segur could reconcile herself to the vocation of her
eldest and best-loved child. She herself, when anguish
had given place to resignation, and resignation had
become an ever-deepening joy, would dwell in her
humility on the wild thoughts, born of her blind
love, which tortured her even while looking on his
calm happy countenance and listening to his cheer
ful words, when she went to see him at the Seminary.
She would confess, when striving to strengthen and
comfort some poor mother under a like trial, that
there were moments when she found herself half
wishing to find her son dead or dying. And yet—
this son, whom she thought she was losing, was
more with her than any other of her children, more
her own than any of them, though wholly given to
God ; and she saw how, even as regards this world,
he had chosen the better part in giving up all for
Him. " Seek ye therefore first the kingdom of God
and His justice, and all these things shall be added
unto you."
Gaston greatly desired to remain at Rome for his
ecclesiastical studies, but his parents opposed his
wish, and he returned to Paris in the January
of 1843. In the summer of this year he paid a
 GASTON DE SEGUR.

farewell visit to his grandmother, the only one of

his family who had rejoiced from the first at his
resolution ; and then followed the last weeks at
Les Nouettes.
At this time Gaston received the following from
P. de Villefort, whom he had begged to give him
some spiritual direction for his life in the Seminary,
a letter which is, as the Marquis says, full of interest
both for its wisdom and piety and for the high
testimony it bears to Saint-Sulpice.

Rome, 25th September 1843.

My very dear Friend,
Ernest de Rayneval has faithfully discharged his
commission, and I have already learnt from him that
all the dreaded obstacles have been cleared away in
a manner which leaves no doubt of the very special
protection of God Who is full of mercy and goodness.
Your letter confirms the good news and also tells me
the time of your entrance into the Seminary. May
our Lord be blessed for it !
You did wisely in yielding to your father's wishes
with regard to the choice of a confesssor after your
return from Rome. It is Jesus Christ Whom we
ought always to see in the minister of the Sacrament
of reconciliation. Besides, as it will one day be your
lot to guide souls, it is profitable for you to be able to
judge by experience of the advantages or disadvan
tages of different sorts of direction. So truly may we
say with the Apostle, Diligentibus Deum omnia cooper-
antur in bonum. Yes, my dear friend, let us love God—
 LETTER OF PERE DE VILLEFORT. 17

love Him with our whole heart and then everything

will help you to love Him more and more.
You wish for some advice as to the details of a
perfect seminarian's life, as to the general spirit which
should inspire his actions and be the mainspring of
his conduct. My dear friend, you are at the fountain-
head of good counsel. You remember, no doubt, what
I have so often said to you about Saint-Sulpice, as
much from spontaneous affection of heart as to combat
the prejudices which you have heard others express.
I now repeat it to you once more—acquire the spirit
which the directors of that school will impart to you,
and you cannot go astray. It is the wise direction
which formed the Venerable de Lasalle, the Venerable
Grignon de Montfort and many others who, after
having continually shed abroad the sweet savour of
Jesus Christ throughout all their priestly career, died
with their hands full of merits and with the reputation
of consummate holiness. The spirit of Saint-Sulpice
is the spirit of jesus Christ.
The spirit, the perfect life of the seminarian, should
be studied in the Hidden Life of our Lord. Place
before you that sweet Saviour at your age—follow all
His footsteps from His rising to His lying down.
Represent to yourself this God Who is your Pattern,
praying—and strive to pray like Him—working, or
listening to the doctors and asking them questions—
work, listen and enquire like Him and for Him. Ask
yourself how He behaved Himself at meal-times—how
He received the strangers who came to St. Joseph's
workshop—how He conversed with the other youths
C
18 GASTON DE SEGUR.

of Nazareth, without a trace of gloominess or excite*

ment, or contentiousness or argument—Arundinem quas-
atam non confringet. Study this life of our Lord con
tinually in the Seminary, especially His obedience,
and think how, though eaten up by the zeal of His
Father's house, He kept silence for thirty years. Yes,
my dear friend, I am not afraid to assure you, that if,
during your years of preparation for the priesthood,
it is your chief care to conform yourself to the Hidden
Life of Jesus, by copying its virtues, so simple and
amiable, so sweet and winning in their manifestation,
but requiring an abnegation the greater and more
incessant the less it is perceived ; you will, when the
time comes for exercising your sacred ministry, repro
duce in yourself the virtues of our Saviour's apostolic
life. Is there—can there be anything else for us to
wish for ?
These are not the words of a man who has even
the shadow of a doubt as to your vocation. They
pre-suppose a deep conviction of its reality. If, there
fore, when you are preparing to enter the seminary,
the devil should suggest to you any temptation of
melancholy, disgust, or depression, rejoice in being
thus conformed to the likeness of our Divine Saviour,
Who, on the eve of His Passion, " began to grow
sorrowful and to be sad ; " only say, too, with Him,
" Rise, let us go." Never disturb yourself about any
ideas which may occur to you with regard to your
vocation. You must have no doubt—absolutely none
—on this subject.
We poor Jesuits are a good deal attacked just now.
 LETTER OF PERE DE VILLEFORT. 19

Pray that we may profit by these trials. I do not

believe that you will ever be the victim of the preju
dices which some—even good persons—have against
us. You know us : and they know us too at Saint-
Sulpice. Remember me very particularly in the
Loreto chapel at Issy.
PH. DE. VILLEFORT,
of the Society of Jesus.
 CHAPTER II.
First years of Priesthood,

In the October of 1843, Gaston de Segur entered the

Seminary at Issy, where the young clerics of Saint
Sulpice went through their course of philosophy.
The following year he received the tonsure at the
latter Seminary, then, year after year, minor orders,
the sub^diaconate and diaconate. Over-work had
brought on another attack in his eyes in the course
of this time, but a journey to the north of Italy and
the Tyrolese Alps completely recruited his health,
and in the December of 1849 he was ordained
priest by Mgr. Affre, and the next morning said his
first Mass at our Lady's altar in Saint.Sulpice. His
mother, to whom he hastened after his ordination,
to give her his first blessing, his father, and nearly
all his family, surrounded the altar and received
Holy Communion from his hand. To some of his
friends he confided afterwards a secret which they
kept till after his death : when holding in his hand
for the first time the Sacred Body of his Lord, he
begged His Blessed Mother to obtain from her Son,
as the special grace and benediction of his priest
hood, whatever infirmity would be the greatest trial
 PRIESTHOOD. 21

and daily crucifixion of his nature without diminish'

ing his usefulness. During the first years of his
priesthood he used to say to those who were in the
secret, " It seems as if I had given our Lady a
tough problem to solve."
Determined to show that, before all things, he
was a priest, the Abbe de Segur took a little
apartment in the Rue de Grenelle, only joining his
family at dinner. Very soon, however, he left it in
order to live in community with a few other devoted
priests in the Rue Cassette. His first four com
panions, one of whom was the Abbe Gay, all
belonged to wealthy families, and all agreed that
poverty and simplicity, like those of the religious life,
was one of the first conditions of success among
the poor.
At this time Mgr. Afire was anxiously seeking for
a priest, free from any charge and full of zeal for
souls, to devote himself as voluntary chaplain to
the military prisoners of the Abbaye, whose forlorn
condition appealed powerfully to his fatherly heart.
Mgr. de Segur eagerly embraced this opportunity of
self-devotioh, and the relations between him and
the poor soldiers were very soon of the closest kind.
It was so easy to make confession to this young
priest, who met them with open arms and a heart
overflowing with compassion ; and after receiving
absolution, these poor fellows, who had been led
astray by drunkenness, passion, or human respect
(and there are scarcely any but these in military
22 GASTON DE SEGUR.

prisons), returned with joy to the God Whom they

had not approached, perhaps, since their First
Communion. Many—and they were among the
most fervent —received Him now for the first time.
The tie thus formed between the priest whom, in
spite of his youth, they affectionately called their
father, and these prodigals of the army, was not
broken when the latter left the Abbaye, either
acquitted or condemned ; and he received letters
from many of them, sometimes sixteen and twenty
years later. It is hard to choose among the
touching specimens given by the Marquis : here is
one from the Bagne of Toulon.
" My dear benefactor,—If your charity came from
human motives, I might fear that my silence would
give you a bad idea of me. I remember when I
was alone at the Abbaye, without any one to show
me a kindness, you were the only one who brought
hope to my soul. ... It is all as clear to me as if
it had just happened, and I keep most carefully
everything you gave me—your good books, your
medals. Believe me, M. l'Abb6, in this hell upon
earth called the Bagne, this gulf where everything
holy is swallowed up, I need the remembrance of
your wise counsels to keep me from the moral
contagion so easily caught."
A year later the same man writes to take leave
of the Abb6 before being sent to Guiana:
" I can only turn to God and to the Blessed
Virgin, the Mother of the afflicted, to help me out
 MILITARY CRIMINALS. 23

of this abyss of misery. There is not a moment of the

day that I do not think of our Lord. I approach the
sacraments whenever I can. You ask me if I have
your Imitation still. Indeed I have, and I shall
keep it all my life in remembrance of the good Abbe,
who led me out of a bad way and set me in the
right one."
Once an old sergeant, named Herbuel, was
brought to the Abbaye. He had shot his com
manding officer dead out of revenge for some
punishment he had inflicted. He became sincerely
penitent, received the sacraments with deep devo
tion, and seemed to have but one desire, that of
living a little longer to do penance. His'wish was
granted. He was condemned to death, but his
execution was delayed for two months—two months
of agony, but a truly Christian one. " My good
M. de S6gur," he wrote to the young chaplain, who
was absent for a few days, " I have just had the
pleasure of receiving your words of comfort and
encouragement. You are always with your children
even when absent, always thinking of their good,
I keep myself ready and prepared to appear before
our Supreme Judge, in Whom is all my confidence.
Every day I can face my position better, and when
the time comes there will be an end of earthly
troubles. My soul is at peace. I only hope I may
live long enough for you to be able to give some
more consolation to your most respectful Herbuel."
He was executed on All Souls' Day. " God's
«4 GASTON DE SEGUR.

will be done," he said when the news was an

nounced. M. de Segur heard his confession, gave
him the Holy Viaticum, and, when he came to
accompany him to Vincennes, where he was to be
shot, the priest was pale and agitated, the criminal
calm and cheerful. " I cannot tell you what I feel,"
he said, taking the crucifix in his hand ; " here is
my Lord Who died for me-—now I am going to die
with Him." The old soldier asked and obtained
the favour of giving the word of command—" Fire ! "
" I had courage for the crime," he said, " now I
must have it for the expiation. Then, when the
Abb6 had given him the last blessing, he cried with
a loud voice, " See, comrades, do not do as I did :
respect your officers. Here is the image of our
Lord Jesus Christ—remember, comrades, I die a
Christian."
Another soldier, named Guth, condemned for a
similar crime, made as good an end. His captain,
whom he had killed, was a fervent Christian who
prayed with his last breath for his murderer's con
version. The first time that this man received
Holy Communion in prison, he nearly fainted from
emotion, and thenceforth he lived only in and for
God. He refused to appeal against his sentence.
" It is just," he said—" I cannot go against God's
law. I would not accept a pardon if I had the
choice. My punishment must expiate my crime."
When the Abb6 took his place beside him in the
van which was to convey him to the place of execu
 MILITARY CRIMINALS. ■5

tion, Guth whispered, " I hardly like to say it, but

I feel as if I were going to a wedding." Arrived at
Satory, his sentence was read to him. " I acknow
ledge the justice of my punishment," he said; " I
beg pardon of God ; I love Him with all my heart."
Then, after embracing the young priest, he knelt
down, extended his arms in the form of a cross,
and his last words were : " I unite my death to
that of my Lord."
It was M. de Segur who accompanied the
murderers of General de Brea (he was assassinated
in 1848) to the scaffold. Two of the number
obtained a commutation of their sentence—their
names were Chopart and Noury. The former was
a young man of much character and intelligence ;
he corresponded with the Abbe de Segur till his
death, and his letters are so full of interest, so
touching and instructive, that we shall insert some
of them here.

Bagne, Rochfort,
July i^th, 1849.
Dear Father,—Do not think that my long silence is
due to negligence or forgetfulness : but a feeling of
shame comes over me whenever I write to you.
' What right,' I ask, ' have I, a man condemned to the
galleys, to take up the time and thoughts of those who
have protected me—nay, saved my life ? I am to end
my days at the Bagne. I ought, then, to submit to the
fate of being forsaken by every one.' Such thoughts
as these, Father, keep coming into my head, the head
26 GASTON DE SEGUR.

so dearly bought, in my moments of weariness and

depression. In a position like mine, though one may
keep from falling, it is impossible in spite of all one's
courage, not to waver—to lose heart. You know,
Father, that I am speaking the truth. You knew me
at a very critical time of my life : then I should have
had the courage to die : then, but for you (who
obtained a commutation of my sentence) I should
have died game, as the saying is : after your pious
instructions, so full of gentleness and force, I should
have died like a Christian.
Now, Father, God is trying me in a more terrible
way than in March. The June prisoners condemned
to the galleys are going to Mont Saint-Michel : those
concerned in the Brea affair, and those guilty. of theft,
arson, and murder, remain at the Bagne. It is not for
me to complain of this rule: only, Father, I must
repeat what I said at Vanves. I would a hundred
times rather die than be in the position which I owe
to the President's clemency. . . . Physically, I do not
deny it, things are not much better at Saint-Michel
than here : there is, indeed, still less liberty, for here
we work in the harbour together with free labourers.
But, oh ! the moral suffering which goes with this
degree of liberty ! Every day, every moment, we are
obliged to hear the infamous conversation of our
fellow-prisoners, and, in spite of one's self, gradually
one gets less horrified at it.
At Mont Saint- Michel it is very different in this res
pect. It is a military prison, and you who are a Chap
lain of a similar establishment, know better than any one
 MILITARY CRIMINALS. 27

that the poor fellows are condemned to hard labour for

small offences. I have heard you say yourself that
they are very far from devoid of all good sentiments.
Let me say a few words about one peculiarity of the
men sentenced to the galleys. When the worst of
them are sentenced to solitary confinement, they do
all they can to get sent to the Bagne. They stop at
nothing to gain their object, not even at the assassina
tion of a comrade or a warder. ... In addition to the
measure of liberty allowed at the Bagne, this preference
is attributable to the fixed idea of all formats, that it is
easier to escape there than from a central establish
ment, and escape is the hobby of all of them. No
one does escape, as a matter of fact ; but they are not
discouraged by that, and, as a rule all the forgats are
in favour of the attempt. You know, Father, how far I
am from thinking in this way. To desire the success of
such an attempt would be to wish for theft and murder ;
and thank God, I am not fallen so low as that. I
have to keep my ideas to myself, from considerations
of personal safety, or I should pass for an informer,
and no one who is known as such is allowed to live. . .
And now, dear Father, having tried to give you a
sketch of our life, physically and morally, I come to the
object of my letter. I have a great favour to ask of
your Christian charity, or rather two favours, for I am
not the only one who needs you. That poor mad
young fellow, Noury, to whom you, too, were attached,
in spite of his strange disposition, has only me to care
for him, to encourage him to behave well, nay, even to
hope. Besides God there is no one else. He has been
28 GASTON DE SEGUR.

entrusted to me by you and by his sister. Placed as I

am, I regard it as a mission, which I have accepted in
the fullest sense of the words, and with God's help I
will fulfil all the duties it involves. You know, Father,
what this poor lad of eighteen is, who has gained such
a sad celebrity from a few words spoken when he was
not himself. . . . You know how much timidity there is
about him—what a child he is. Why, when he was
condemned to death, and every one imagined him a
fellow of fierce sanguinary appearance, he spent his
time in playing with a pigeon, or on a bad accordion !
The Gospel says : ' Ask, and it shall be given unto
you ; knock and it shall be opened unto you' ; and so,
Father, I beg you to try to get us sent from the Bagne
to another prison. General de Montholon has been
here, and he inquired what characters were borne by
the insurgents left at the Bagne. M. le Commissaire
was so kind as to send for me and to say that he
should give me a very good one. His last words
were : ' Write to M. de Segur ; he has stood your friend
formerly, and he will do so now.' This is why I have
no hesitation in applying to you, and I know well that
if you do not succeed in making things better for us,
it will be because it is impossible. I have had the
happiness of learning what you are, and I know that
you have a deep, true, above all a Christian affection
for me ; and that is the only sort of affection I believe
in now.
My dearest Father, if, after all your endeavours
(you see I have such confidence in you, that before
you have consented to my request I speak as if the
 MILITARY CRIMINALS. *9

thing was done) you should only obtain the permission

for me, then I entreat you to refuse it, otherwise I
should be more unhappy than before. If Noury
were left to himself, he would go quite mad or kill
himself, and then I should reproach myself all my life.
Our hearts and prayers will follow you, Father,
and may God prosper your endeavours ! . . . We
have been both saving up for three months, so as
to send you a little straw box for your mother.
We think it very pretty, and we shall be delighted
if your good mother likes it. We would send her
something better, but we are not rich, and I know
what you look to is the intention, not the value of
the gift.
My good Father, when you have a few minutes to
bestow on us, write us one of your kind and holy
letters. And do not fear, whatever may be the result
of your attempt, I will receive good or bad news with
faith : fiat voluntas Tua. We beg you to remember us in
your prayers, and unworthy of it as we are—in the
Holy Sacrifice. Dear Father, accept the respectful
greetings of your two sons in Jesus Christ,
ANDRE CHOPART.
JEAN NOURY.

The Abbe's efforts were unsuccessful. God had

accepted the simple self-sacrificing devotion of His
poor child in the Bagne : and who shall say how
many were the graces with which He rewarded it ?
Andr6 Chopart remained where he was till a new
law allowed him to choose between the Bagne and
3° GASTON DE SEGUR.

transportation to French Guiana. The young man

gladly embraced the latter course, and we now give
the letter he wrote to M. de Segur on the eve of
departure, and one written from Cayenne :

Rochefort, May, 1852.

Dear M. l'Abb6,—It is so long since I wrote, that
my letter will surprise you. How often must you,
who have been so good to me, have accused me of
ingratitude. For three years I have lived on delusions,
and nothing short of the inscrutable mystery of recent
events could have opened my eyes. And yet there has
been a bright side to these unrealities on which I have
fed for three years : they at least helped to keep me
from being corrupted. I was too much absorbed by
my fetishism to think of anything else. Now that my
delusions are over and destroyed, nothing but reality
is left : and—oh, my God ! what a reality ! 1 have
caught at the only plank of salvation which was within
my reach in this moral shipwreck of thought and hope.
In a few days I sail for Guiana. Had I remained at
the Bagne, I tell you plainly, Father, I never would
have been a Christian. Knowing by bitter experience
what the religiosity of the forgats is, I never would have
had part in the monstrous things which go on there.
I know quite well that I am not responsible for the
sinful actions of others, and yet, I repeat, J never would
have been a Christian at the Bagne. Oh, my Father, if
you knew as I do what that terrible life is, perhaps you
would wonder less at my obstinacy.
In Guiana, my conduct here, added to the kind
 MILITARY CRIMINALS. 31

ness of M. le Commissaire, places me in the first class,

and relying on the promises of the Government, I
may hope, being in this class, to be free some day. . . .
As the time of departure draws nearer, the religious
sentiments, which, thank God, Were ineffaceably
engraved on my soul in my youth, become stronger.
I shall have a month to spend on that vast ocean,
which will bring before me the infinite power of its
Creator, and I shall have time to contrast with it the
infinite littleness of men and their works. I do hope
to make a Christian use of my voyage, and to
arrive on the other side regenerated and purified. I
believe, Father, that you will see nothing in my letter
but what I mean it to express—sincerity and a good
resolution.
Would it be too much to ask you sometimes,
when you are able, to answer the letters which I hope
to write you from Guiana ?
It is natural to feel, and I do feel pain at leaving
my mother and sister, at putting eighteen hundred
leagues between my native land and the one I am
going to: but in spite of that, and in spite of the
proverbial unhealthiness of the country, I am glad
and thankful to leave France—to leave the Bagne.
Perhaps I shall never see you again : perhaps I
shall see you some day when I am altered and grown
old with captivity and bad climate. If ever I have
the happiness of meeting you, dear Father, I shall
be able to speak of the fortress of Vanves and the
March of 1849 as of a dream—a terrible night-mare.
Now, Father, a thousand times adieu. Pray do not
3* GASTON DE SEGUR.

forget me in your prayers. Ask for me of the great

and merciful God the strength I need to bear the
trials of the new position I have chosen with patience
and in a Christian spirit. Ask Him, too, to give me
moral courage to persevere in my good resolutions,
so as one day to share in the blessedness He has
promised. May God keep you, Father, and bless
your work ; and may He give a Christian peace to
poor distracted France.
Your son in Jesus Christ,
ANDRE CHOPART.

Kedu, Salut,
September i, 1852.
My dear Father,—You must often have said to
yourself, ' Chopart is an ungrateful fellow ; he has
forgotten the friend who was so kind to him, who
prepared him so carefully to endure his terrible sen
tence as a Christian ought.' No, Father, I never
forgot you, but I busied myself too much with politics
at the Bagne to think about practising my religious
duties. You know better than I do what our Lord
said about not being able to serve two masters at
once—God and the world. I confess, in all sincerity,
that I preferred politics to God. But while confessing
my faults, dear Father, I must tell you that I never
had the ideas of the rest about priests : I have always
been a Catholic. . . . When I sailed for Guiana I
made a firm resolution to live a Christian life. In
France, at the Bagne, I chose to neglect performing my
religious duties, rather than perform them in dispositions
so unsuited to the dignity and sanctity of the acts. I
 MILITARY CRIMINALS. 33

did wrong, I know; but I do think it would have

been worse still to act like a hypocrite.
My dear Father, you have always shown a paternal
interest in me : often you have condescended to devote
some moments of your time to me. A letter from you
has always been a joy and a comfort to me. So far
away as I am from country, mother, and the few
real friends who, in spite of my sentence, were faithful
to me in trouble, I want some consolation. Will you,
Father, forgive me for asking you to write to me now
and then ?
I like being here far better than at the Bagne. Life
is a shade less dreadful ; and then, in a few months I
hope to get a little position in Guiana, for I must tell
you that this is a small island three leagues off the
mainland. As I am so new to the place, I had better
say nothing just yet as to my notions of it, bad or
good. I will do so later on. And I will now end by
begging you to remember me and pray for me.
Your son in Jesus Christ,
ANDRE CHOPART.

The Jesuit Fathers, who had nobly volunteered to

be the chaplains of the poor deportes, bore witness to
Andre's perseverance. One of them said that, once
converted to God, he advanced rapidly in the path
of resignation, penance, and humility.
My dearest Father [he wrote in June, 1856] , God in
His mercy and goodness always made me feel shame
and remorse while I was living as those do who have
no faith. My uneasy conscience always warned me
D
34 GASTON DE SEGUR.

that eternal misery would be the punishment of so

sinful a life. I can truly say, that if I kept my faith
through it, it was a miracle of goodness due to the
protection of our Blessed Lady and to the kind letters
you so often wrote to me, and which I read and
re-read even in my worst days. Since Easter I have
been so happy as often to approach the altar. How I
wish I could lead a life pure enough to be able to do
so daily ! My dear Father, I beg you of your charity
to get some prayers for me after my death. I will
take care that you shall hear of it. I have no one on
whom I can depend for this service, and yet, when I
think of all my sins, I may well say, as Bayard did,
that if I could fast in a desert on bread and water for
a thousand years, it would not be enough for their
expiation. I ask this of you, Father, knowing that I
shall not always be the one to see others die,1 and
that my turn will come. And I am not afraid of
death. Not that I rely on any merits of my own, but
only on God's great mercy.
Your most humble and respectful son in
Jesus Christ,
ANDRE CHOPART.

He did, in fact, die a very few years later, in the

arms of the good Fathers who had done so much
for him, and from whom M. de Segur received the
details of his holy death.
1 He had just witnessed the deaths of two Jesuit Fathers within
a fortnight of each other.
 CHAPTER III.

Priest's work in Paris.

Among the most useful and admirable of the many

useful and admirable ceuvres of Paris are those of
the young apprentices and of the Cercles Catholiques.
We have all heard, some of us may have seen,
something of the wonderful fruits of these great
works, which have done more than any others, per
haps, for the Christianizing of the teeming world of
the young artizan life of Paris. The " Patronages "
of the first-mentioned ceuvre are too many to enumer
ate, and there are four hundred " Cercles " now in
active operation : may they be the leaven to keep
from corruption the class exposed to socialistic and
communistic influences, far more widely spread, and,
We may venture to say, more depraved and danger
ous, than those to counteract which these noble
works were set on foot ! But, like all great things,
they had very small beginnings. " God's mills
grind slowly," and it is of these early days that we
must now speak.
The Patronages were first begun in 1845, but
they were little known or thought of till the Revolu
36 GASTON DE SEGUR,

tion of 1848 rudely aroused the indifferent or infidel

bourgeoisie of Paris to the necessity of attending to
the working classes, who, neglected as they were,
became an easy prey to the socialists of the day.
Since the great Revolution there had been no single
legislative measure to protect the wretched children
of the people from the hideous abuses and miseries
prevalent in the workshop, and abetted or winked
at by wicked and selfish masters. The Society of
St. Vincent of Paul was not slow to discover these
evils in the course of its ministrations, and its mem
bers founded several Patronages for apprentices, but
without the active labours of a devoted priest the
amount of good done could be but small. The
Abbe de Segur was one of the first to see the peed,
and with him to see was to set to work to supply
it. He threw himself into the thing with all the
spirit and energy of his nature, and, to the last
moment of his life, this and kindred labours among
poor children, apprentices, and young workmen,
were above all others the objects of his predilection ;
it was his first and last vocation.
Up to this time priests and laymen, even the
holiest and most devoted, doubted, almost despaired,
of awakening the spiritual life ip the children and
young workmen of Pans under the social and in
dustrial conditions of their ejdstepce, such as it was,
"Was the problem to be solved? The question was
discussed at the Patronage of the Rue du Regard,
the first that had beep founded, and the Abbe de
 PASCHAL RETREAT.

Segur was there to answer that it could. From the

very first he was on terms so friendly and intimate
with the children that everything came easy to him.
He was made for this new apostolate ; he had every
gift, every quality for it* His brother's words are :
" To say the truth, paradoxical as the statement
may at first appear, there was something more than
sympathy : there was a positive resemblance between
the well'born young priest and the working lad of
Paris. There was the same frankness, the same
buoyancy, the quick perception, the familiar gaiety,
the ready wit, the word which calls up a laugh as
well as that which goes to the heart and draws
tears. They recognized and understood each other
at the first glance, with half a word." His power
over the children of the Patronage was so great,
and its good effects were so evident, that some of
the directors very soon conceived the idea of having
a Paschal Retreat. It was a bold notion for those
days ; nothing of the kind had ever been attempted,
and not a few even of the most zealous of the
directors declared it to be utterly unpractical and
unreasonable, but as the Abb6 de Segur was ready
to give it, the thing was agreed to. A grain of
mustard seed, indeed ! The retreat was not even
preached in a chapel—the Patronage had none—
but in one of the rooms of the house in the Rue du
Regard. A pious pupil of Pierre Olivaint's lent a
relic of the True Cross for the occasion, which was
placed on a bracket at the end of the room. The re«
38 GASTON DE SEGUR.

treatants heard Mass at Saint-Sulpice, and received

Benediction in the chapel of the Lazarist Fathers,
but, humble as these beginnings were, they were
crowned with success. The Apprentices' Paschal
Retreat was regularly started, and henceforth it took
place yearly. Then, as the houses became more
numerous, a general retreat was given for them all.
A few years more, and the work had so developed and
increased that no church could contain the numbers
who flocked to the general retreat, and the original
plan of separate retreats for each Patronage again
became the rule; but the survivors of this " day of
small things " still speak with emotion and tender
ness of that first retreat preached by the Abbe de
Segur to a handful of poor lads in the Rue du Regard.
The ceuvre of the " Cercles Catholiques " was the
natural development of the Patronages. The ap
prentices became young workmen, exposed to all
the dangers of the workshop, all the temptations of
Paris—dangers and temptations which grow with
the growth of these lads, who, as experience had
taught the Abbe de Segur, if they may become so
many apostles in the family, too often ruin the work
of the patronage in the souls of its younger members.
The question was, then, how to continue the . in
fluence of a work originally intended for children
over youths emerging from apprenticeship, without
sacrificing the interests of the former. The directors
of the house in the Rue du Regard again gave
M. de Segur carte blanche, and again the result was
 THE FIRST "CERCLE CATHOLIQUE." 39

a great success. The attics of the house were

turned out, and " done up " as tastefully as means
permitted, and all the youths over sixteen were
invited to come on Sunday evenings. There were
games and amusements of different kinds, and cakes
and refreshing drinks were provided, but the at
traction was the presence of the young Abb6, whose
gaiety, kindness, and indescribable charm were the
life and soul of these meetings, which were the germ
and nucleus of the Cercle Mont-Parnasse, still the
type and model of the four hundred others now
existing. To the end of his life he retained an
especial affection for it, and when, in 1880, the
" silver wedding " of the Cercle was celebrated, he
accepted with delight an invitation to honour this
family gathering with his presence. He was already
struck by the malady which was to be his last, and
could not preside at the dinner in consequence, but
as soon as it was over he came in and addressed a
few words of exhortation to the assembly, among
whom were some of the eldest-born of his apostolate.
It was not enough for his inexhaustible charity to
give his time and thoughts and labours to his child
ren : his home must be theirs too. His room in the
Rue Cassette had a kind of little ante-chamber,
which he devoted to them. The walls were hung
with book-shelves, and the table was covered with
sketches and engravings, among which were always
a number of caricatures by Cham, whose rare merit
it is to be almost invariably as unobjectionable as
40 GASTON DE SEGUR.

he is talented* This room was always open to the

apprentices and sehool-boys of the neighbourhood,
and here they came to see their friend and father
and adviser, to chat with him freely, to be consoled
in every trouble and helped in every difficulty. It
seems that the Rue Cassette had hitherto enjoyed a
reputation for great quiet, not to say dulness, but
the good Abb6 had completely revolutionized it The
Paris gamin, even the most pious, is rather a noisy
creature, and the rush and clatter of feet, the shout
ing and laughter which announced the presence of
the Abbe's visitors, excited much dissatisfaction and
some wonder as to what these young barbarians
wanted there. They were not long ignorant of the
name of the guilty party, for in their enthusiasm
the lads would sometimes dash along the street with
a shout of " Long live M. de Segur ! " When he
was appointed auditor of the Rota, and went to
Rome, the good folks of the Rue Cassette must
have enjoyed their return to peace and quietness all
the more from the force of contrast.
We will describe another favourite work of Gaston
de Segur in the words of Mgr. de Conny, one of the
four priests with whom he lived in community.

He had begun the habit of questioning the misera

ble children who were sent to beg in the streets,
asking whether they attended any catechism class,
and whether they had made their First Communion.
The answer was too often a negative, and then he
 CEUVRE FOR STREET BOYS. 4i

offered to teach them and prepare them for this great

act of a Christian's life. Many accepted with sincere
eagerness, and their numbers increased so much that
it became necessary to organize the thing regularly,
and the Abbe de Segur made an arrangement by
which one of the Christian Brothers of the house in
the Rue de Fleurus was charged with the individual
instruction of those children who were unable to
attend any school or catechism. In the evenings
Gaston de Segur gave a little discourse to those
whom he found assembled, and was ready to hear
the confessions of all who wished it.
When a certain number were prepared there was
a First Communion, and all those who were present
were deeply touched by the piety with which the
children approached the altar. In the evening
they were the guests of their saintly catechist.
For my part, iiving as I did in community with
Gaston de Segur, and being present at these happy
little festivals, I cannot say how I delighted in
them, how I wondered at the work wrought by the
holy lessons and the joys of religion in these souls,
which I should have thought blighted by their
miserable antecedents. How happy they were, poor
things, to feel themselves treated with kindness and
respect, and how anxious to continue to deserve
this treatment ! I know that I never shared in any
festivity which was like those little suppers to me.
Let me add that the good resolutions of these
children were not transient. I knew enough of my
friend's good works to be able to state, either on
4* GASTON DE SEGUR.

my own testimony or on that of others on whom I

can depend, that their firmness was often very
remarkable.

Besides the four important works of which we

have given a slight sketch, the military prisons, the
Patronages, the young workmen's Cercles, and the
Catechisms of the Rue de Fleurus ; there was the
Confraternity of the Holy Family in the Rue de
Sevres, composed of the poor of both sexes, to
whom he preached a discourse on Sundays after the
Mass ; a distribution of alms, according to the needs
of each member, concluding the meetings. He
worked so hard and so incessantly that his
doctor assured him that if he intended to kill
himself, he had only to continue for six months
longer as he was doing. In fact, not . more
than a year after his ordination, he was obliged
to suspend all active work for a time, and was
not even allowed to say Mass for several weeks.
A season at Eaux-Bonnes, and a short visit to
Les Nouettes, restored his health, and he returned
with increased energy and delight to his beloved
"floating parish" of prisoners, workmen, and des
titute children.
At this period of the biography the Marquis de
Segur gives the Rule of life which his brother laid
down for himself on leaving the Seminary, to shew
that it was from a spirit of truly apostolic zeal, and
not from any imprudent recklessness that in so
 EXAMEN OF CONSCIENCE. 43

short time he had over-taxed his strength. It is

preceded by this :

EXAMEN OF CONSCIENCE.
Have I lived to-day as a Christian, that is, as a
man who is to live throughout eternity, conformed to
Christ, and dead to myself, the world and sin ?
Have I shrunk from sharing my Master's Cross,
His humility, His love of humiliation, abjection and
neglect ? His Hidden Life ; His sweetness and patience
in regard to God, my neighbour and myself? His
interior and exterior mortification in my thoughts,
imaginations, words, actions, looks and the rest of
my senses ? His poverty, by living detached from all
things in this world and directing all my aims and
efforts to life eternal in Jesus Christ ? His purity,
avoiding every occasion of sin and every freedom ?
His obedience, seeking in all things the Will of God
only ? His piety towards His Father, in all my
actions, especially in the works of the sacred ministry ?
His spirit of sacrifice and oblation, regarding myself as
a victim of religion to God in union with Jesus Christ,
and of sanctification for the world ?
Am I conformed to Christ in my understanding, my
thoughts, instructions, comparisons, judgments ? in my
heart, its affections, antipathies, inclinations, in my
words, in my whole behaviour ?
Have I lived as a priest, that is, as a saint and
sanctifier of others ? Have I sought the glory of my
Divine Master all day ? Have I done all that He
expected of me for the salvation of the souls He died
for on Calvary ?
44 GASTON DE SEGUR.

RULE OF LIFE.
The Christian and sacerdotal spirit is the soUl of my
life. Exercises of piety and ministrations are its body.
Evening Examen : To think of my meditation and
prepare it carefully.
Retire to rest punctually, before ten o'clock, with
recollection, penitence and modesty.
During the night, lift up my heart to Jesus and Mary.
Rise punctually—great promptitude and generosity.
Mental prayer, the Soul of my day and of my
sacerdotal life—seek in it above all things union with
Jesus Christ and contempt of myself. An hour, unless
necessarily hindered. Before beginning, a fervent
renewal of my devotions and consecration to the
Blessed Virgin.
Spirit of prayer during the day—actual union with
our Lord.
Office—as nearly as possible at canonical hours.
Great spirit of religion and affection of heart—If
possible, on my knees.
Holy Mass. Great care in immediate preparation—
general and particular intentions, annihilation before
the Divine Majesty.
At the Altar, deep devotion, losing myself in our
Lord Jesus Christ. Rubrics.
Silence before and after. Thanksgiving, twenty thinutes,
affection and attention to the Presence of JesuS Christ,
" Manete in Me et Ego in vobis."
Sacred Scripture, the science of the priest—daily,
especially the Holy Gospel in order the better to know
our Lord Jesus Christ, Who is Life Eternal.
 RULE OF LIFE. 45

Study—in a spirit of faith and prayer. Regular

work. Not to let myself be absorbed by the duties
of my sacred ministry. Prepare my instructions well
— mistrust of my own facility. No loitering in my
room.
Entire devotion to Our Lady. To act in a spirit of
dependence on the Mother of God, for everything in
me belongs to her. Ask her blessing on going out
and coming in. Meditate during Rosary.
Conversation—" Qui non offendit verbo, hie perfectus est vir."
Judge no one, least of all my superiors and brother-
priests. Avoid detraction, quizzing. Speech reserved,
prudent, simple, gentle and modest. Nothing about
confessions or politics. Nothing frivolous.
Manners amiable, peaceable and grave, I should
see Jesus Christ in my brethren : " Mihi fecistis."
Meals—religion, simplicity, mortification, reasonable
care of my health. Not to pay attention to the dishes.
Monthly Retreat with my brother-priests.
Confession. Weekly, at least.
Indulgences. Gain as many as possible, and give
them to Our Lady, the absolute mistress of all my
spiritual and temporal goods.
Regulation of expenses. Buy nothing superfluous for
myself. No bills, unless unavoidable.
Preaching—simple, solid, useful, well prepared, suit
able to the Word of God and the dignity of the
priesthood, like the Preaching of our Lord, my Pattern
in all things.
Sacrament of Penance—devote myself wholly to it,
especially to the confessions of poor children. Spirit
46 GASTON DE SEGUR.

of faith, charity and prudence—to see and love them

in our Lord Jesus Christ only : " Quamdiu fecistis uni ex
his fratribus Meis minimis, Mihi fecistis."
A single soul cost the Life and Passion of God our
Saviour : " Bonus pastor animam suam dat pro ovibus suis."

It had been for some time in contemplation to

compile a manual of devotion for the use of the
members of the Patronages, and one of the directors
of that in the Rue du Regard thought of adding to
this manual a little pamphlet entitled, " Answers to
the principal objections against religion." He
decided, however, that neither the objections nor
the answers met the case ; and knowing that the
Abbe de Segur was under orders to give up all work
involving the use of his voice, he felt sure that he
should be conferring rather than incurring an
obligation by proposing that he should do some
work for God by his pen during this period of
enforced activity. The result was the little book of
Reponses which, somewhat developed and enlarged
at a later period, has had so great a success and
done so great a work for souls innumerable, having
passed, in thirty years, through several hundred
editions and been translated into almost every
European, and even into the Hindu language.
At first the little book seemed likely to come to
nothing. The Society of St. Vincent had begun to
publish and distribute good books, and the president
of one of the Conferences proposed the publication
 MANUSCRIPT OF THE "REPONSES." 47

of the Reponses to the Council. One of the body, a

distinguished literary man, who afterwards became
a member of the French Academy, was commis
sioned to examine the Abbe de Segur's book and
report upon it. He did so, and while acknowledging
the good intention of the author, he decided that it
had no other merit, that it was like a score of others
which unfortunately go far to justify the opinion
that all good books are very dull reading. Well ! it
was a blow certainly ; but Gaston de Segur made
spiritual capital out of the humiliation, as he did
out of everything that befel him ; he offered it to
God and thought no more of the matter ; but his
friends were not disposed to take things so quietly,
and never doubted that a good Catholic publisher
would be found to undertake the business. This
again proved a failure. It was then proposed to
him to publish on his own account, but this he
refused to do ; his humility acquiesced in the judg
ment passed by high authority on the book, and he
said simply that his money belonged to the poor, and
his conscience forbade his employing it in this way.
The poor manuscript therefore was put away,
and so effectually, that when Madame de Segur
expressed a wish to read it, it was nowhere to be
found, and was only discovered by chance in looking
for something else by a servant who took it to her.
A year before, a two hundred franc note had been
found on the staircase of her house, and after setting
the police to work and trying all ways to find out
48 GASTON DE SEGUR.

the owner in vain, she had come to the conclusion

that she was at liberty to use it for a charitable
object. Now it seemed to the good mother that
she could not apply it to a better purpose than that
of publishing Gaston's little book, and so at length
it saw the light. It is no wonder, when we consider
the good it has done and the failure with which it
was threatened, that the Marquis de Segur should
see in all this the Hand of God trying the author's
humility and marking with the sign of the Cross
his first effort in a line in which he was to do so
much for His Son and for the souls so dear to Him.
Accustomed as he was to see the action of Provi
dence in everything, he took the success of his first
attempt as a sign that God would have him serve
Him by his pen as well as by the active works of
his ministry.
Not long after this, another opportunity presented
itself. The Society of St. Vincent had begun the
practice of distributing little tracts or leaflets, which
each visitor gave together with the weekly dole for
food, reading and explaining them first when neces
sary. This was the origin of the Little Readings
with which the name of Mgr. de Segur is so closely
associated. It was a work after his own heart,
one for which he had all the necessary gifts, and he
threw himself into it with a zeal which never relaxed
even when occupied in important and absorbing
functions in Rome. He writes, in July, 1852, to one
of the members of the Council of the Society : " I
 THE SWEDISH ARTIST. 49

am just sending off some articles for the Little

Readings to M- Baudon ; he is perfectly free to make
any corrections he likes as to manner, but not as to
matter, for in respect of doctrine a word more or
less may make heresy of what is said. , . , I par
ticularly wish you not to allow your good and over
scrupulous colleagues to soften down my phrases.
That is taking the salt out of the soup, I consider
the important article on ' Blasphemy ' a failure just
because of these corrections : you can no longer tell
that it treats of the coarse blasphemy which is so
universal. The chief merit of my little articles is
that I dot my i's and go straight to the point, taking
my readers for what they are^-extremely ignorant.
One reason why sermons are sometimes so dull is
that priests affect a conventional style, beating
about the bush, and trying to say something new."
The Abb6 de Segur was assiduous in visiting all
his spiritual children and all his poor friends who
were in the hospitals, where he was always at the
disposal of the Sisters of Charity or any pious
persons who might beg him to console or convert
some particular patient, A young needlewoman
who was in the habit of visiting the H6pital Baujon,
one of those holy souls of whom there are so many
of her class in Paris, spoke to him once of a young
Swede dying there of consumption whom she had
been doing her best to help for some time. He was
an artist who had come to Paris full of hopes which
had ended in disappointment and broken health :
E
50 GASTON DE SEGUR.

he was utterly alone, and welcomed the charitable

visits of this good girl as those of an angel of
consolation. "How is it possible," he asked, "that
you can care as you do for a stranger ? " His grati
tude gave her courage to speak of prayer, and for
her sake, he consented to wear a miraculous medal
and to recite the Mimorare, but he would only agree
to see a priest on condition that he should not
speak to him about religion. In this way the Abbe
de Segur made poor Gabriel Edmann's acquaint
ance. In the first interview, faithful to his promise,
he confined himself to kind and affectionate ex
pressions of interest ; but the young man's heart
was won at once, as all simple hearts were, by the
unspeakable charm of his nature and manner, and
the second time he came there were no prejudices
to overcome, the young artist's soul and the priest's
were in communication, and the task was henceforth
an easy one. Gabriel cried like a child as he listened
to the simple, fervent words in which his new friend
spoke to him of Jesus and Mary, of the sacraments
and of Heaven. " No one ever spoke to me like that,"
he said. The Abbe spent several hours in instructing
him, then, having learnt from the Sister that the end
was near, and finding him in excellent dispositions,
resolved to receive his abjuration without delay. It
was the 30th of November, and the Abbe gave him,
in baptizing him, the name of Andrew in addition to
his own. " What a happiness ! " he said, " it is a feast-
day indeed for me. Thank God for bringing me here."
 FAMILY MINISTRATIONS.

Gabriel died the next day. Here is an extract

from a letter in which the young workwoman, who
brought M. de Segur to poor Gabriel's bedside, de
scribes the impression made on him by his visitor :
" The Sunday after M. de Segur's visit, the poor
young man caught my hand the moment he saw me,
saying, ' But, my good sister ' (he used to call me
so), ' it is an angel not a man that you sent to see
me ! One cannot look at that young priest without
seeing God in him.' He could talk of nothing but
M. de Segur, how he might have such a fine position
and had given it all up to be a priest and to serve
God better. ' If it were God's will that I
should get well, the first time I went out should be
to hear his Mass and have Holy Communion from
him. I would obey him in everything.' " Must we
not say, as his brother does, " happy the priest
whose soul is so penetrated and radiant with the
Divirte Spirit, as to merit and justify this sublime
testimony of the penitent sinner, the converted
Protestant ? " One cannot look at him without
seeing God in him ! It is like the definition of an
apostle given by St. Paul : " I live, now not I, but
Christ liveth in me."
To all these various works of corporal and
spiritual mercy the Abb6 de Segur added what his
brother calls his " family ministrations," a work
which went on increasing during his whole life.
He made it a duty to celebrate the marriages of his
relations, to baptize their children, to prepare them
 GASTON DE SEGUK.

for first Communion and Confirmation, to console

them in sickness or sorrow, to assist them in their
last moments, and to commit their bodies to the
grave. His affectionate and earnest exhortations
so wrought upon his great-grandmother, Madame
d'Aguesseau, who had lived for more than fifty
years in heresy, that she consented, at the age of
eighty, to see Pere de Ravignan, who received her
abjuration, and the closing years of her long life
were spent in prayer and penance.
We cannot resist quoting this beautiful letter from
Mgr. de Segur to his brother, the future Marquis,
on the occasion of his marriage.

What shall I say to you, my dear brother, on this

happy day so anxiously desired ? You know my af
fection for you ; the natural bond between us has been
strengthened by the sacred bond of grace, and I have
ong loved in you not a brother only, but a friend of
the Lord, Who is my Life and my All.
You and I are the eldest sons of the house : we are
called to be its heads. I was to have been the head
before men, but I chose the better part, to be the head
before God, and you have supplied my place in the
post which I have left for a higher vocation. As priest
and head of our family, I am answerable for its honour
before God ; as man of the world and head of the
same family, you will be answerable for its honour
before men. Every day, in the glorious ministry of
the altar, I offer this family, in its present no less than
ts past and future generations, to God, praying our
 LETTER ON HIS BROTHER'S MARRIAGE. 53

Divine Lord to give thefn a share in His Redemption

and eternal glory, apart from which all glory is a
dream and a chimera ; while you, who are called to
duties less sublime, but not less necessary, must study
to continue worthy of your fathers and to become one
day a pattern to your children.
Now the secret of honour, both before men and
before God, is all told in one word—to be a true
Christian. That includes everything, the performance
of the great duties of life, whether public or private ;
justice, integrity, energy, and perseverance, as well as
the equally important qualities of kindness, gentleness,
and forbearance. It is also the secret of happiness—
for happiness is involved in duty, like the fruit in the
shell. . . . Always united in Him Who is the Supreme
Peace, Goodness, Mercy, Truth, and Life, your af
fection will draw from the fountain of the love of
Christ a strength and a sweetness ever new, and the
marriage-tie will make you better instead of alluring
you from God, as it does sometimes. . . . What I
particularly wish to remind you of on this solemn day
is the power which holy almsgiving possesses of para
lysing the dangers of riches and sanctifying a high
position. Give alms, love the poor, help them, assist
them, seek them out. Go into their dwellings to dry
their tears, to feed the hungry, to clothe the naked,
and to make those that are desolate feel that they have
still friends, brothers, and servants on earth. Give to
them largely and joyously, and when you have given,
give again and give continually. Never did almsgiving
impoverish or ruin any one. Do not listen to the voice
 GASTON DE SEGUR,

of human prudence, but show that it is possible for a

Christian lo unite the lowly works of charity with the
more brilliant ones of a higher social position. ... In
conclusion, my brother and sister, I ask our Blessed
Lady to obtain God's blessing for you. Like the bride
and bridegroom of Cana, you have invited her and
her Son to your wedding. From the bottom of your
hearts you will listen to her when she says to you, as
she said to that blessed pair, ' Whatsoever He shall
say to you, do it.' Your fidelity to Mary's words will
be the pledge of your happiness both in this life and
in the changeless rest of eternity. May we all attain
to it by the mercy of God and the merits of our Lord
Jesus Christ !
 CHAPTER IV.

In Rome,

The year 1852 brought great changes to France,

involving a great change in Mgr. de Segur's life. It
will be well to say a few words of his view of the
coup d'etat. It was, of course, before all things, a
Christian view ; for in politics, as in everything, he
looked only to the glory of God and the good of
souls ; and in common with the immense majority
of the clergy and the Christian laity, he hailed with
relief and satisfaction the advent of a strong Govern
ment prepared to put down anarchy and confusion.
There can be little doubt that but for the election of
Louis Napoleon, the Legislative Assembly of 1851
would have ended in becoming what the National
Assembly did become twenty years later.
When the invasion of the Papal States in i860 so
fatally annihilated the confidence of Catholics and
the hopes they had cherished of Louis Napoleon,
Mgr. de Segur sadly said his meet. culpa on the subject
to the illustrious Bishop of Poitiers, who made
answer that France so greatly needed a Charlemagne
in 1852 that she might well be excused for being
determined to see a Charlemagne in the Prince.
56 GASTON DE SEGUR.

Events did indeed prove the fallacy of her expecta

tions, but, to say the least, the evil day was put off
for twenty years, during which Catholic institutions
prospered and increased. As the Marquis de Segur
says : " We may judge of their progress by
their ruins ; and before condemning those who,
without inviting the coup d'etat, without even justify
ing either its principle or manner of execution,
accepted its consequences with prompt resignation
and legitimate hopes, one should be able to foresee
What would have been the result of the regular course
of events, the maintenance of the Constitution of
1848, and of the General Election fixed for May,
18521" The Abb6 de Segur accepted the new
Government with no other political idea than
St. Paul's desideratum for the Church and her chil
dren, " to lead a quiet and peaceable life."
His own peace and quiet were now to be broken in
upon in a way for which he was little prepared.
One of the first objects which engaged the attention
of the new ruler of France was her relations with
the Holy See, and immediately after his accession
to power he made known his intention to send to
Rome an " Auditor of the Rota " for France, with
an especial view to the revision of the notorious
" organic articles " which, while professing to carry
out the Concordat, were in reality its practical con
tradiction. The Prince also expressed a strong
desire for the modification of the laws regarding
civil marriage, education, and other important
 AUDITOR OF THE ROTA. 57

subjects, so as to bring them into harmony with the

decrees of the Council of Trent. Of course the
proposal was eagerly accepted by the Holy Father,
and the French Government at once addressed itself
to the task—no easy one—of finding the right man
for the post. It was by what people call an " acci
dent " that M. Turgot, the Minister for Public
Affairs, mentioned the name of M. de Segur to the
President. He was an old friend of the Comte de
Segur, and had heard the highest character of his
son in the days when the latter was a young attache
in Rome. The Prince consented to see the Abb6,
who was strongly urged by his father to accept the
appointment, should it be offered to him.
It was a thunderbolt to Gaston, carrying destruc
tion to all his ideas of the vocation and labours for
which God had marked him out : he believed himself
entirely devoid of aptitude for judicial or political
business, and his first impulse was to give an
unqualified refusal to the overtures made to him.
But, in the true spirit of faith and humility, he
resolved not to take upon himself the entire respon
sibility of so important a decision. He took time
for consideration, above all for prayer, he consulted
wise and holy men to whom he submitted the
question ; and the voice of conscience thus enlight
ened was not the same as that of his inclination.
His aversion for dignities proved them to be the
less dangerous to him; if he. sorrowed over leaving
the simple souls he loved so well, he must consider
58 GASTON DE SEGUR.

the services it would be in his power to render to a

whole nation by his influence ; and so, in a spirit of
duty and sacrifice, he yielded, not knowing that He
Who accepted that sacrifice would recompense it
even in this world, by bringing him back to his
lowly apostolate, after some years of useful labour
in Rome, sanctified by the immense blessings and
privileges of the holy city, by close and affectionate
intimacy with the Father of the faithful, and above
all by the life-long cross whose first touch he was so
soon to feel.
His first audience with the President was decisive ;
M. de Segur was charmed with the graceful kind
ness, too simple and spontaneous to be called
affability, which every one felt who was admitted
to confidential communication with Louis-Napoleon ;
while the latter, who was, as the Marquis de Segur
remarks, as simple and amiable in private life as he
was selfish and wily in politics, was equally pleased
with the Abbe. Here was a man with no ambition
but that of serving God, who earnestly desired
cordial relations between France and the Holy See,
who would go straight to the point without any
alarms as to how far he might be personally com
promised, and who would be sure to tell him the
truth. He spoke very frankly of the irregularities
of his youth, of his old prejudices against the
Papal Government, declaring that experience had
opened his eyes, and that he earnestly desired that
peace and harmony with Rome which he believed
 THE COMMUNITY BROKEN UP. 59

to be as necessary for the State as for the Church.

To the day of his death Mgr. de Segur believed
that then, at least, he was sincere.
So the little community in the Rue Cassette was
breaking up : two of its members, the Abbe de Conny
and the Abbe Gibert, having gone to Moulins, the
former as Vicar-General, the latter as Canon.
Here is an extract from a letter from M. de Conny
to Gaston de Segur and the three others still in
the old house :
What is the spell, my good friends, that has been
cast over our poor community ? It is being broken
up bit by bit ; in order, no doubt, to put the different
pieces in a very grand setting ; but anyhow, it is coming
to an end in the making of canons, vicars-general,
and auditors of the Rota. I do not know what the
rest of our brethren are to become ; to be set on some
pinnacle or other, I dare say, but I can assure you I
am quite sad at the thought of your being all scattered.
Brother Gaston, do not be long in paying me your
visit. . . , You must go, like Jephte's daughter, who
went to bewail her virginity among her companions,
to lament your obscurity, your littleness, which you
are going to be robbed of in order to be made a
personage, for good and all. Your sacrifice is made ;
I know there is no going back, but I feel sure you will
find it hard work to be taking everywhere about with
you a man of importance, and not to be able to come
and go, speak and act simply without fuss. I know /
find it hard to resign myself to all these inconvenient
dignities in your case.
6o GASTON DE SEGUR.

To this letter the Abb6 Gibert added a neat

Latin postscript, which loses a good deal in the
translation :
" Alas ! Brother Gaston, ' how is the finest colour
changed ! ' From black you have become purple,
from a subject a superior, from children's confessor
auditor. I condole with you instead of congratu
lating you. Why did not I stay with you ? Why
did not you stay With us ? At all events may our
Lord Jesus stay with us, for it is towards evening—
Farewell ! "
As to Gaston de Sdgur's innumerable " parish
ioners," the poor Paris gamins, artisans, and soldiers,
their consternation may be imagined. It seemed to
them like parting for ever, in spite of his assurances
of constant prayers and affection, his promises to
spend his three months' vacation among them every
year. To the most devoted he promised to write,
and the promise was faithfully kept. The following
touching little letter is from a young workman, to
whom Mgr. de S6gur was much attached, and to
whom he had given hopes of taking him some day
into his service.
Dear M. l'Abbd,—I take the liberty of writing you
a line, as I have not had time to come to take leave of
you. I am so glad I have your likeness, for whenever
I am tempted to go wrong, I shall only have to look
at it to bring you before me. I thank you a thousand
times for all your goodness to me and my mother.
You don't know what a grief your going away is to
 LEAVING FRANCE. 61

me : it makes such a blank—I cannot describe it. My

comfort is that I hope our good God will bring us
together again some day, it is what I ask Him for
every day, night and morning. What happiness it
would be to be near you—in your house ! If that
came about, I should feel safe for eternity. I promise
you to go often to Confession, and to receive Holy
Communion every month, for remember I am going to
be with a lot of bad characters, and to hear bad
words and swearing all day, Then, if I get out of
work, how shall I manage to help my poor mother
and to keep myself? I shall not have you like a good
father, near me —oh ! I can never say how good you
were to me. Do, pray, send me a bit of an answer.
I shall often write to you, and you will give me good
advice like a father, Now I must end and say good
bye, and embrace you with all my heart, I wish you
a good voyage without any accident, A whole year
before I shall see you again, my kind friend and
father ! I am for life your humble, obedient, faithful
friend,
ERNEST S.
Early in the May of 1852, then, M. de Segur left
France ; his mother promised to join hjm in Rome
for the winter with her daughters, for one of whom,
Sabine, " the saint of the family," this visit was the
prelude and, as it were, consecration of the offering
of herself which she was about to make to God in
the Convent of the Visitation.
The four years spent by Mgr. de Segur in Rome
may be considered as the second portion of his life,
 62 GASTON DE SEGUR.

to be succeeded by twenty-five years of an apostolate

still more extensive and vigorous than that which
preceded his appointment to the functions of Auditor
of the Rota. As it is to this apostolic work that
this sketch is chiefly devoted, we shall pass as
quickly as possible over these four years, but the
portrait would be unfinished without some notice of
them ; and, as will be seen, he was both ingenious
and successful in devising ways and means for com
bining the labours dearest to his heart with the
exercise of the new functions, in which he did good
service for God and His Church.
Pius the Ninth was eagerly expecting the young
Auditor, and no sooner had the latter arrived at the
Vatican, where his cousin, Mgr. de Merode, resided
as Chaplain to the Pope, than he was summoned
to the presence of His Holiness, before whom he
had to appear, just as he was, all covered with the
dust of his journey. The Holy Father embraced
him affectionately, and during the whole of his
residence in Rome he admitted him to the closest
intimacy, and bestowed on him a thousand marks
of the tenderest regard. The two most intimate
friends of Mgr. de Segur at Rome were Mgr. de
Merode and Mgr. Bastide, of whom the Marquis
gives an interesting sketch. The former, as is well
known, was a soldier before he was a priest, and a
soldier he remained all his life. Louis Veuillot said
of him, that he was made of the same stuff as Julius
the Second, and Augustin Cochin described him as
 DE MERODE AND BASTIDE. 63

a sword sheathed in a cassock. Full of humility

and burning charity, he was, however, not only
terrible to the enemies of God and the Church, but
rather alarming, at times, to those he most loved
and respected : he would contradict the Pope him
self, who liked him none the less for his freedom.
His austerity of life was extreme. Certainly Mgr.
de Segur was not in the habit of treating his body
too tenderly, but he said laughingly of the few days
he spent with his cousin on first coming to Rome,
that he had never been so much edified nor so ill
fed in his life.
Monseigrteur, or, as he was at this time, the
Abb6 Bastide, had passed his youth in the gayest
circles of Paris. Suddenly, in the midst of his
career of pleasure, he was overcome by a feeling of
disgust for its emptiness, and went straight to the
Roman College. His vocation as military chaplain
was made plain during the siege of Rome, when he
joined Mgr. de Merode in rendering the most devoted
attentions to the French soldiers, and during the
twenty years of the occupation of the city by the
French army he was its chaplain, friend and father.
His enthusiasm for Rome was a passion, and he
had no greater pleasure than that of acting as guide
to pilgrims of every grade, from his beloved troopers
to the most distinguished statesmen. Such were
the men who were for a time to be to Gaston de
Segur what Mgr. Gay and the other brethren of the
Rue Cassette had been in Paris.
64 GASTON DE SEGUR.

No sooner was he initiated into his new duties,

than he cast about how to help the Abbe Bastide
with his huge military flock : he knew, indeed, that
he had come to Rome on purpose to serve God in
quite another way, but the longing for souls was too
intense to allow him altogether to abandon the
apostolate which was his very life, " I am greatly
afraid," he writes to a friend, " that I shall not be
able to hear the confessions of these dear fellows.
One has to observe a certain etiquette with regard
to the Court to which I belong. If I were to throw
myself too openly into works of active charity, the
tribunal of the Rota would be blamed for the loss of
suits, and not only I should be complained of, but
the Pope for choosing missionaries as judges. So
I must do what I can without seeming to do any
thing." In this spirit of prudence he began by
simply helping M. Bastide by preaching to the
soldiers on Sundays, and by joining them in a large
room appropriated to the purpose, where conversa
tion, games, sermons disguised as stories, everything,
in short, was utilized to bring God near to these
souls, very good and simple ones as a rule, in which
the piety of early days only needed the touch of a
wise and tender hand to wake up into life and
activity. He won their hearts readily, as usual ;
and not being able to hear their confessions, he
quietly prepared them and handed them over to the
Abbe Bastide. This was the rule, at least ; but the
exceptions soon became tolerably numerous, and the
 A SOLDIER'S LETTER. 65

Auditor of the Rota was so often turned into con

fessor and director, that by and by the exception
became the rule. These military soirees developed
a good number of vocations, and who shall say how
many souls were brought back to God by the Abb6
Bastide and his unaccredited coadjutor? We will
let one of these good French soldiers speak for
himself :
Monseigneur,—You must forgive me for taking the
liberty of writing these lines. I want you to know
how heartily grateful I and a great many other soldiers
are for the happiness you have given us. When
first I wore the uniform, I said to myself, ' Now, my
good parents, goodbye ; I shall no longer have you to
speak to me kindly and show me the importance of
serving God.' I thought that, for a soldier, there was
no more faith or religion, or kind charitable friends ;
and indeed the first two months I was in garrison at
Marseilles I only met with young soldiers who used
disgraceful language and bragged of their vices. I
used to pray to God to get me a change of post ; and
there—in a few months I got it, for I was in Rome,
where I found no more of that freedom of speech and
bad talk : the reason was that the good fellows here
had had the luck to hear your advice and profit by it.
That was not all my good fortune—I heard you for
the first time ! I could not help crying for joy as I
heard your kind words. It is as though God had
placed you among us as the father of us all. . . I
never find the time long now—everything seems to go
right. What a change it is ! I used to hate the
66 GASTON DE SEGUR.

military profession, and now I thank God for putting

me in it. There is Mgr. Bastide, too : there is no
saying how fond we all are of him. It is to you and
him that I owe my happiness here. Forgive me for
speaking in this way to you, but I am too full of
gratitude to be silent. You speak so kindly to us, and
it is such a pleasure to a soldier to be talked to about
his family and his country.
To this humble tribute we will add one of a dif
ferent kind, which gives a life-like picture of Mgr.
de Segur's life in Rome. The following extracts are
from an account written by the Abbe Klingenhoffen,
a Protestant officer in a regiment of Chasseurs,
when first Gaston de Segur came to Rome, who
was converted by him and Mgr. Bastide, became a
priest, and acted as Mgr. de Segur's secretary
during the last two years of his office.
The first time I saw Mgr. de Segur was on the
occasion of some great feast, I think it was the beatifi
cation of Blessed Germaine Cousin. There was a
sudden block which stopped the carriages returning
from the function, and in one of these was a dignitary
whose striking appearance attracted my attention, and
who, to my surprise, saluted me courteously in return
for my fixed gaze. I learned afterwards that it was
Mgr. de Segur, a great friend of the French soldiers,
which explained the kind smile with which he had
greeted a stranger. Some months later I fell sick,
and so made aquaintance with the Abbe Bastide, who
sent me Mgr. de Segur's Reponses, and, when I was
 M. KLINGENHOFFEN. &7

recovering, introduced me to the author. He made

me promise to visit him, lent me books, and was kind
enough to instruct me himself. . . . He received my
abjuration just before he left for France for the vaca
tion during which he completely lost his sight. On his
return, he asked me to be his secretary. . . . My
vocation to the priesthood had been prophesied to me
already by Pius the Ninth on my reception into the
Church, and I entered Holy Orders the day of the
proclamation of the dogma of the Immaculate Con
ception. There was quite a little congregation of us
at the Palazzo Brancadoro, the youngest was the
Abbe Jules Hugo, nephew to the poet. . . . He died
the death of a saint soon after. A little later a brother
of Mgr. de Segur, who was Chief Secretary to the
Embassy, joined us. In the morning we had prayers
together, then we heard Mass ; work or study till eleven,
reading and answering letters. After breakfast there
were always numbers of visitors ; every Frenchman
of note came to Mgr. de Segur, who was always kind
and charming, and inexhaustible in his advice on the
way to see Rome well. In the afternoon we went
out. . . . Mgr. de Segur spent a long time in the
evening in his chapel. ... It was his time for hear
ing confessions, and every day brought some new
penitents, among whom were many officers and soldiers.
Kind and affable to everyone, he was especially so to
the French. He had given strict orders that priests
were not to be allowed to wait, but to be admitted, no
matter what the time might be. One day, however
—we were coming in very late—I saw in the ante-room
66 GASTON DE SEGUR.

an old priest, shabbily dressed, who had every appear

ance of coming to ask alms. Monseigneur was tired-
and the servants thought it best not to announce his
visitor till after supper ; so that the poor priest waited
in silent patience for some time. After a while he said
that he wished to go to confession, and was taken to
the chapel, where, after supper, Monseigneur joined
him. I heard him pouring forth apologies on leaving
it. The visitor was the saintly Mgr. Villecourt, Bishop
of Rochelle, on his way to the Vatican to be made
Cardinal. When he paid his next visit, in state, to
Mgr. de Segur, it was amusing to see the embarrassed
air of the servants as they went to receive him, at the
bottom of the staircase, carrying tall wax candles, as
is the etiquette before a Cardinal.

After supper the salon was open, and M.

Klingenhoffen goes on to describe many of the
habitues, among whom was the admirable General
de Sabran-Ponteves, of whom his intimate friend,
Colonel de Malherbe, said that he was sure he had
never lost his baptismal innocence. He fell in the
Crimean War. These evenings were delightful ;
every one was at his ease, and so at his best, and
the host as much the life and soul of this polished
circle as he had been with his dear noisy guests in
the Rue Cassette.

There were exceptions to this routine [M. Klingen-

hoffen continues] . After Mass on Sundays there was
a visit to the house of the Christian Brothers near the
 TWO SEMINARIANS. 69

Fountain of Trevi, which was especially devoted to

the children of French soldiers, and which became a
model of good conduct and piety. He gave the
children an instruction, and catechized them, the good
marks being rewarded by a distribution of cakes, the
size of which was regulated by the marks, but it was
whispered that Monseigneur was apt to strain a point
so as to entitle a doubtful candidate to the highest
' very well,' and its corresponding cake of three sous.
Some of the children were, at first, very ill in
structed, and these were the objects of his particular
care. Through them he reached the parents, and
gained them, too, to God. Souls were converted,
wants relieved, marriages made between persons who
had lived for years in unlawful unions. Every one
trusted, no one feared him. He was repulsed by no
difficulty, or rather, he refused to admit the existence
of one when it was a question of God's glory and the
salvation of souls. His ' I will see to it,' was like the
famous jf'y penserai of the Cure d'Ars.

When the illustrious Bishop of Poitiers visited

the school of Trevi, Mgr. de Segur presented to him
two of his best boys, Leon Kampf and Claude Rey,
begging that they might be admitted into his Little
Seminary at Montmorillon. The request was
granted, and the lads set off alone, with a scanty
purse and their letter of recommendation, and
knocked one fine morning at the door of the Semi
nary. " Who sent you here ? " " Mgr. de Segur."
"Where do you come from?" "From Rome."
70 GASTON DE SEGUR.

They were received, and both did credit to their

recommendations. Claude Rey died a holy death a
few days after his ordination to the priesthood.
His companion returned to Rome, and after earning
his stripes as sergeant-major in fighting against the
Garibaldians, finished his ecclesiastical studies, and
is now cure of a parish in the diocese of Poitiers.
During the long beautiful days of the Roman
summer and autumn of 1852, Mgr. de Segur devoted
much of his leisure to his favourite art. He wished
to paint eight pictures of saints as illustrating the
beatitudes, and several competent judges have pro
nounced his best work to be the figure of St. Ignatius,
whom he chose for the last. He had just begun
that of St. Charles, as the pattern of those who
hunger and thirst after justice, when the loss of one
of his eyes (in May, 1853) obliged him to lay down
his pencil never to take it up again.
 CHAPTER V.
The Vatican, the Tuileries, and Saint-Sulpice.
Events were thickening in France. The Presi
dent of the Republic was Emperor of the French.
His marriage followed almost immediately, and he
wrote soon after to the Holy Father expressing the
great desire he had to be crowned by him. The
letter was sent under cover to Mgr. de Segur, to
whom he also wrote in the same sense, adding some
remarks on the burning question of the Organic
Articles, which he admitted to be detrimental to
religion as they stood, although he considered that
to press their revision would be impolitic just then,
as it would be regarded in the light of a concession
to the Papal Court in return for the Pope's consent
to crown him. Mgr. de Segur went at once to the
Vatican, where he was admitted to a private
audience, the details of which were a secret for
many years, and told to the Marquis long after by
his brother. His account is very graphic and
interesting. Mgr. de Segur, kneeling at the feet of
the Holy Father, presented the Emperor's letter to
him. He read it half aloud with evident satis
faction, and when he had finished, said admiringly,
72 GASTON DE SEGUR.

" This is a magnificent letter 1 " and went on to

speak of the wish it expressed to be crowned by
himself. " That is very natural," replied the young
Monsignore, whom the Pope always encouraged to
treat him with respectful familiarity ; " if your
Holiness were in his place, would you not do the
same ? " " No doubt—but there are difficulties."
" Perhaps," Mgr. de Segur ventured to say, " the
idea would not be well received by some members
of the Sacred College ? " " No, no, the difficulties
have nothing to do with the Cardinals ; the thing
is that an excellent Concordat is about to be made
with Austria, and what would Austria say if I went
to France ? There would be a risk of breaking off
the negociations. Besides," he went on in a tone
grave to severity, " I cannot set foot in France so
long as the Organic Articles exist. The first of
them is a blow on my face " (e un schiaffo per me.)
Then, after reading over again some passages of
the letter—"Well, and what does Mgr. de Segur
think about it ? "
The young auditor required some pressing before
he spoke. At last he said : " Since your Holiness
commands me to speak, this is what I think would
be not only possible, but beneficial to the Church.
It would prevent any discontent on the part of
Austria if, after crowning the Emperor Napoleon
at Paris, your Holiness were to go to Vienna to
crown the Emperor of Austria. I think it would
have a marvellous effect. No sooner would your
 A PRIVATE AUDIENCE. 73

Holiness arrive in France than the nation would be

at your feet ; it would be the death-blow to Gal-
licanism, and, once at Paris, the Emperor would
consent to everything you wish. From Paris your
Holiness would pass through Germany, and that
would be a decisive stroke against Protestantism,
which is incapable of satisfying the people, some of
whom are tending to infidelity, others to Catholicism.
It would be altogether such a triumph as the Holy
See has not had for many a day." The Pope lis
tened in well-pleased silence, and replied, " Ebbene,
andremo ! Well, then, we will go ; only, if the
Emperor wishes me to do so, he must open the door.
Let him make a fresh Concordat much like the first,
of which the last article shall simply run thus :
' Every law or decree contrary to the present Con
vention is hereby abrogated.' Then I will let three
months pass, that the Emperor may escape the
reproach he fears of having made a bargain for the
sake of gratifying his personal ambition, and then—
in carrozza ! " Mgr. de Segur wrote at once to
Napoleon in the plainest terms, and some weeks
later started for Paris, where he had a very cordial
interview with him, in the course of which he asked
the Emperor why he should not follow the example
of Charlemagne in going to be crowned at St. Peter's,
rather than that of Napoleon the First in being
crowned at Notre Dame. The Emperor answered
with a smile that he had no objection to such a
solution of the difficulties, except that the recol
74 GASTON DE SEGUR.

lections of his youth in Rome were such as to have

left an impression compromising not only for his
dignity, but for the solemnity of the coronation. It
is more than probable that besides these disedifying
impressions, he had left at Rome associations and
promises which he was not disposed either to break
or to disavow, such as were recalled to his memory
in later days by Orsini's bombs.
The negociations continued to hang on, but nothing
was decided. The Crimean War broke out ; the
Emperor publicly placed his fleet under the pro
tection of our Lady, largely increased the number
of military chaplains, which was recruited in great
measure from the Society of Jesus ; in short, his
whole attitude was one to encourage the hopes of
Catholics, and it is certain that in the October of
1854 negociations were again opened between the
Vatican and the Tuileries ; their failure, it is equally
certain, was solely due to the maintenance of the
Organic Articles by the Emperor, contrary to his
own sense of right. How different might both his
own history and that of France have been in the
coming years if he had had the true courage of
his convictions ! To quote the Marquis de Segur :
" If Napoleon the Third had had the firmness to
insist on the abolition of the Organic Articles, the
measure would have been hailed with joy by the
mass of the people ; he would have been crowned
by the Pope, and the disaster of Sedan, with the
disgrace that followed, might have been spared to
 ROME AND SAINT-SULPICE. 75

France. At all events, he would have left behind

him a lasting mark of his goodwill to the Church ;
his name, in spite of his faults, would have been
dear to Catholics, who would have had him to thank
for their deliverance from that odious legal falsehood
known as the Organic Articles ; and, just as the
memory of the first Napoleon is, in spite of Savona
and Fontainebleau, irrevocably linked with that of
the Concordat, so would the memory of Napoleon
the Third, in spite of Castelfidardo, have been
honourably associated with that of the abolition of
the Articles."
And now we must give a very brief account of
the part borne by Mgr. de Segur in a great work
which he had long had at heart and which he was
happy enough to bring to a successful conclusion—
the restoration of the use of the Roman Liturgy in
the Community and Seminary of Saint-Sulpice.
Slowly and surely the so-called " Gallican li
berties " had been languishing and dying out.
Dom Gueranger's pen had done good work in the
right direction ; the minds of Catholics tended more
and more strongly towards perfect unity—a tendency
which was to lead up to the definition of the Papal
Infallibility in 1870 ; in short Gallicanism in doctrine
had received its death-blow, What remained to be
dignified with the high-sounding title of " Gallican
liberties " was nothing but a collection of customs
and practices resting on no solid foundation of any
sort, and always disapproved of and regretted by
76 GASTON DE SEGUR.

the Holy See ; and among these one of the most

inveterate and least excusable was the abandonment
of the Roman Liturgy. As is well known, the dis
use of the Roman Breviary was succeeded by the
introduction of diocesan breviaries, all differing from
each other, which was a still more troublesome de
velopment of the original evil. Nevertheless, after
the re-establishment of national worship by the
Concordat, these breviaries had become so established
by custom that the Holy See, acting in its usual
spirit of divinely-guided prudence, waited for the
action of time and the grace of God to bring things
straight. The leaven was already at work ; and
when Mgr. de Segur went to Rome in 1852, the
principle of the restoration of the Roman Liturgy
was accepted by the majority of French Catholics.
But the acceptance of a principle is a different thing
from putting it in practice, and the question was
complicated by many difficulties which threatened
to adjourn its solution indefinitely.
As a matter of fact, the great work was not
accomplished in the diocese of Paris till after the
war of 1870 ; but it was through the instrumentality
of Gaston de Segur—" Roman," as his brother says,
" from head to foot "—that the reform was adopted
in the Seminary which had trained him for the
priesthood, and to which his attachment was so
great as to earn for him from Pius the Ninth the
playful title of " Monsignor Sulpiziano." His
longings after liturgical unity were shared by many
 SUBMISSION AND OBEDIENCE. 77

of the Directors of Saint-Sulpice, notably so by the

great Hebrew scholar, M. le Hir, who hoped great
things from his old pupil's Roman mission. At his
farewell visit he promised to beg from the Holy
Father some favours which the Community greatly
desired, among which was his approbation of several
special offices in use among them. In performing
his promise, Mgr. de Segur spoke to the Pope of
the decisive influence which the introduction of the
Roman Liturgy in a Seminary receiving pupils
from every diocese could not fail to produce on the
French clergy, and heard from him that he should
greatly rejoice in the example of a return to canon
ical unity being given by the sons of M. Olier. The
Pope went on to express the pain he felt, not at
any doctrines held at Saint-Sulpice—there was
nothing to blame in this respect—but at the choice
of one or two authors disapproved of at Rome.
Mgr. de Segur lost no time in informing M. Le Hir
of the Pope's sentiments, and received a reply
from him so touching in its filial sorrow for the
grief caused to their Father by anything done by
the "poor little Community of Saint-Sulpice," so
full of holy humility and entire submission and
obedience to the Holy See, that we wish we had
space to translate it here. Such lessons from such
men deserve pondering in days when many Catholics
are not afraid to discuss and criticise the utterances
of the Vicar of Christ as if they were the expressions
of a private individual. The grief expressed by
 78 GASTON DE SEGUR.

Pius the Ninth must have given place to joy on

seeing how eagerly his commands were expected,
how promptly they would be obeyed ; and he imme
diately ordered Mgr. de Segur to write to the
Superior, M. Carriere, a clear and formal statemeut
of his wishes. The whole correspondence on this
subject is so beautiful and so much to the honour of
all concerned in it, that it is matter of rejoicing
that the Marquis has published it in full in an
appendix. We can only give M. Carriere's letter to
the Pope, which he sent open to Mgr. de Segur to
hand to him, saying, with characteristic simplicity,
" You know so much better than I do the right way
of presenting it. I really believe I am the first
Superior of Saint-Sulpice who has ever written
directly to the Pope."

Most Holy Father,—Prostrate at the feet of Your

Holiness the little ecclesiastical Community of Saint-
Sulpice receives with the deepest reverence and the
most entire submission the expression of your wishes
which you have condescended to transmit to us through
Mgr. de S6gur. We receive them as commands spoken
by the lips of our Lord Jesus Christ, Whom we honour
m your sacred person, and we shall conform to them
in every particular.
Your Holiness has been already informed that im
mediately on the appearance of the decrees relative to
two writers, one on canon law, the other on theology,
whose works were in use in several of our Seminaries,
they were at once withdrawn. Now, wherever it
 THE SUPERIOR'S LETTER. 79

depended on us, and especially in Paris, we have sub

stituted for Bailly's theology that of Mgr. Bouvier,
corrected according to Your Holiness' intentions. The
course of canon law is now oral. I am resolved to be
more and more careful that no author whose doctrines
are not approved by the Holy See shall be used as a
text-book.
As to the Roman Liturgy, our Seminaries have been
the first to use it in all the dioceses in which it is
adopted. With regard to Paris, your words, Holy
Father, have removed all difficulties. The Roman
Breviary is to be introduced into our noviceship, and
into the Paris Seminary for those subjects not be
longing to the diocese,1 till the time comes when it
may be used by all.
After this assurance of our submission, it is my duty
and consolation, Most Holy Father, to express to
Your Holiness, in my own name and that of all my
brethren, our deep and humble gratitude for the kind
permission you have given us to continue to recite the
Office proper to the Seminary, as also for the In
dulgence attached to a prayer very dear to us,2 and for
all the other proofs of affection with which you have
honoured us. Such proofs must necessarily enkindle
more and more in all the members of our community
the sentiments of veneration and devotion with which
they have always been filled for the Holy Apostolic See
and for the august Pontiff who so worthily occupies it,
sentiments with which the disciples of M. Olier will
1 They formed the immense majority at the Seminary of
Saint-Sulpice.
• The prayer, " O Jesu, vivens in Maria."

i
8o GASTON DE SEGUR.

always endeavour to inspire all the students in their

Seminaries.
Humbly prostrate at the feet of your Holiness,
I esteem this a precious opportunity of having the
happiness of renewing, in the name of our whole com
munity, the expression of the unalterable reverence,
the entire obedience and the absolute devotion with
which I am and shall always continue,
Your Holiness' most humble and obedient servant
and son in Jesus Christ,
CARRIERE,
Superior of Saint-Sulpice.
Paris, Seminary of Saint-Sulpice,
November 14, 1853.

It is a curious coincidence that, by a kind of

instinct, the Emperor was sensible of the logical
necessity of that perfect unity in matters of religion
which Mgr. de Segur so largely contributed to bring
about in the important work of which we have given
a hasty sketch, although the subject in regard to
which he manifested his sentiments was a different
one. In a letter to Mgr. de Segur just about the
time when the affair of Saint-Sulpice was settled,
the Emperor says : " If it were possible to obtain
from the Pope the authorization of only one
Catechism for the whole of France, I should
esteem it a great boon. I should like you to
ascertain the mind of His Holiness in this matter."
Curiously enough, the thirty-ninth of the notorious
Organic Articles runs thus : " There shall be only
 TWILIGHT. 81

one Liturgy and one Catechism for all Catholic

churches (n France," and it is, perhaps, Mgr. de
Segur remarks, " the only one which has been put
into practice by the Holy See in the re-establish
ment, with the concurrence of the bishops, of the
Roman Liturgy : the only one, also, which has been
opposed by the different Governments which have
succeeded each other in France in the last eighty
years, and which they would, one and all, have
gladly suppressed."
A year had passed since Gaston de Segur came to
Rome. It had been a time of many blessings. His
political functions, with the publicity and the per
sonal consideration and dignity which they involved,
were, indeed, a continual trial to him, but the fatherly
affection of Pius the Ninth was a powerful make
weight, and his official occupations allowed ample
leisure for the apostolic labours of which we have
given an imperfect sketch. He had received, as a
special grace from God, the happiness of a winter
spent with his mother, during which he had revelled
in the delight of showing the city to her and others
of his family, and now, a few days after their return
to France, on the first day of our Lady's own month,
she reminded him of his covenant with her on the
occasion of his first Mass. We will give the account
in the words of his friend, Mgr. de Conny, who
arrived at Rome just as Madame de Segur left it.
I arrived on the 25th of April, and on that day my
friend told me that there always seemed to be a red
G
82 GASTON DE SEGUR.

spot before one of his eyes, at the outer corner. I

said it was no doubt the effect of the beginning of the
warm weather, but he continued to complain of the
sensation, and on the ist of May, after a meeting of
the Rota, as he sat down to his painting for a recrea
tion, suddenly the red spot spread like a curtain before
the whole field of vision. ' There is one eye gone,' he
said, ' and very soon I shall lose the other.' I made
him come with me at once to Dr. Mayer, the physician
of the French Army of Occupation, who did not
conceal the gravity of the matter. . . . then we went
to walk in the streets bordering the Quirinal Gardens.
I was overwhelmed by this blow, while he was per
fectly calm. ' God,' he said, ' gave me two eyes thirty-
three years ago ; to-day He has taken back one of them,
and soon, I expect, He will take the other. I have
only to thank Him for the time He has allowed
them to me. He is the Master.' ' Of course,' I an
swered, 'those are the sentiments of faith, but one can
not be insensible to the impressions of nature.' ' Are
we Christians, are we priests,' he exclaimed, ' that
we should yield to the impressions of nature when
faith speaks ? ' I could not help thinking that if any
one had been near enough to hear our conversation,
he would have thought that it was J who had just
received a great blow, and that my friend was con
soling me under it, but doing so in rather an austere
manner. He went on : ' All this is very good for me :
in my position, treated, as I am, so kindly by the
Pope and with so much confidence by the Emperor,
I could hardly have escaped being shortly made Arch
 A GREAT FAVOUR. 83

bishop and Cardinal ; and do what one may, even

ecclesiastical dignities do expose a man to the danger
of being uplifted in his heart, Now I shall be clear
of all that, and go back to Paris to hear the confessions
of my poor fellows there, which will be much better
for me.' His only sorrow in the matter was the
thought of his mother's grief ; yet for her, too, He
Who brings ' all good things from evil ' made her son's
blindness a fruitful source of blessings. As he says in
the little book which he dedicated to her memory
after her death : ' This blessed infirmity, so severe ap
parently, so good and sanctifying in reality, was the
occasion of my return to Paris, and to my mother
whom I never left, except occasionally, during the
eighteen years which God had in store for her: and
the same cause gained for me from the affection of
Pius the Ninth a priceless boon which my mother
shared with me to the end of her life—I mean the
permission of having the Blessed Sacrament in my
chapel,'

This permission was, indeed, a favour very rarely

granted, and, it may be added, rarely solicited, and
when Mgr. de Segur made the request, the Pope
hesitated for an instant ; then, conquered by the
expression of sadness on the suppliant's face, he
bent over him as he knelt, and taking his head
between his hands, said, in a voice of intense affec
tion : " I should refuse most people, but I say ' yes '
to you because of my love for you " (perche vi voglio
bene), then he added, in Latin, Ad consolationem, ad
84 GASTON DE SEGUR.

tempus : thinking, as he then did, that there were

hopes of a cure ; but this was not to be, and the
time for which this supreme consolation was to last
was to be the lifetime of the saintly sufferer.
Several persons, both in Rome and elsewhere, were
very urgent with him to implore a miraculous cure
from God, but he never would consent. He could
not even bring himself to desire anything but what
God sent, and he always expressed the strongest
conviction of the spiritual benefits he should derive
from this visitation of God. " It is a serious thing
and a great responsibility," he once said, " to be the
subject of a miracle, and I should be afraid of it."
Never once, either in conversation or in his letters,
did Gaston de Segur express the slightest distress or
self-pity under the trial he was enduring, a trial,
moreover, which he knew to be the forerunner of a
greater one, for he never doubted that he was about
to be completely blind. The ecclesiastical dignities
which he foresaw he must soon relinquish were,
indeed, a burden which he was thankful to lay down,
but there was not even a passing sigh for the art
which had been the passion of his youth and which
was still his one relaxation. No one ever surprised
a look of sadness on his face, or detected the slightest
change in the cheerful serenity which was his
distinguishing characteristic. There was always the
same even tranquillity, the same sweet courtesy and
unselfish consideration for others, the same forget-
fulness of self ; and so, insensibly, all who knew him
 PREPARATION. 85

began to feel confident that the mischief was only

temporary. The Emperor was so persuaded of this,
that he discussed with the Bishop of Amiens and
others the question whether it would be possible to
make Mgr. de Segur Grand Almoner of France, a
dignity which he had serious thoughts of restoring,
if, indeed, that state of mind can be called serious
which was always characterized by a certain sloth-
fulness, or rather nonchalance, which joined to his
real ignorance on such matters, made him abandon
many far more important projects and reforms, to
which he was personally inclined, in compliance
with the wretched policy of his nearest advisers.
The prospect, however vague, of being destined to
such a post would have been alarming to Mgr. de
Segur if he had ever shared the illusions of those
around him as to the future. But he remembered
his agreement with our Lady, and he knew that this
was her answer. Once when a friend inquired
about his sight, he answered playfully, " My eye no
longer belongs to me ; our Lady has taken it and
sent it to Purgatory in my stead." He had taken
the first step on the Via Dolorosa which the mercy
of God, so he called it in his noble and childlike
spirit of faith, had appointed for him, and he never
doubted that he should walk in it to the end.
Fifteen months were to pass before his blindness
became complete, and he spent them in a calm and
cheerful preparation for the night of which this twi
light was the herald. He began, by degrees and
86 GASTON DE SEGVR.

without a word to any one, to practise walking

and helping himself in different ways while keeping
his eyes closed, and he succeeded so well, that when
the time of blindness came, it was found that he
was able to shave himself as adroitly as when he
was in the full possession of his eyesight. Day
by day he accustomed himself to use his sight less
in saying Mass, and as he had the Pope's permission
always to say a Votive Mass of our Lady, he learned
it by heart, as well as an immense number of psalms,
offices, and other devotions which he had habitually
recited. His memory had, up to this time, been
anything but good, so that it was a difficulty to him
to quote accurately a verse of the Sacred Scriptures
or a passage from the Fathers ; and surely it must
have been by a special help from the Master he
trusted so absolutely that, from the time we are
speaking of to the end of his life, he was in the
habit of making long quotations in his sermons and
instructions with a fidelity and readiness which were
remarkable. He also learned by heart all the Masses
de tempore of the Blessed Virgin, as well as those of
the Holy Ghost, the Blessed Sacrament, the Sacred
Heart, the Cross, the Chair of St. Peter, the Stig
mata of St. Francis, the Patronage of St. Francis
of Sales, and the Mass for the Dead. To the
end of his life, too, he gave Communion at his
Mass, and no accident ever occurred to distress
either himself or his communicants. " Give and it
shall be given to you." Gaston de Segur had
 NIGHT. 87

given himself unreservedly to God, and these were

" added " graces by which the Heavenly King
" delighted to honour " the faithful servant who
sought, first and solely, his Master's justice and the
interests of His Kingdom. And so the weeks and
months went on, and while the many who loved and
venerated him were hoping for his cure and dreaming
of new duties and dignities in the future, he was
waiting calmly and prayerfully for the next touch of
God's hand which was to close his eyes for ever in
this world to the light of day.
The month of July, 1854, found Mgr. de Segur at
Les Nouettes, where he was passing the vacation
with his mother. He felt so sure that the crisis was
at hand, that he made it a special request to our
Lady, to be allowed to see his brothers and sisters
once more before the curtain fell between him and
all outward things. His prayer was heard : there
was absolutely no reason why all the members of
his large and scattered family should assemble at
their father's house at that particular time—yet so
it was. His brother and biographer arrived the last
of all, on the 1st of September, and on the 2nd, a
Saturday, the blow fell. A doctor in the neighbour
hood, a friend of the family, who had examined
Gaston's eyes the day before, called early in the
morning to dissect before him the eye of an ox,
which the physician had described to him as re
markably beautiful in its structure. He was greatly
interested, and after breakfast the whole family went
88 GASTON DE SEGUR.

out to walk in the grounds. He was rather in

advance of the rest, with one of his brothers ; quite
suddenly he stood still, saying, " I am blind," adding
immediately a particular request that nothing should
be said to his mother till it was unavoidable. She
came into his room more than once in the course of
the day, and he talked to her so naturally and cheer
fully, that she had no suspicion of the truth ; it was
not till dinner-time, when she noticed that one of
his sisters cut up his food, that it broke upon her.
One can well believe that, as the Marquis says, none
pf those present ever forgot the scene, the bitter
grief of all but the sufferer, the contrast between
natural human anguish and Divine supernatural
serenity. The following extract from a letter written
four days later to Mgr. Pie, gives so beautiful a
picture of his state of mind, that we cannot resist
quoting it.

Happily, I am just now with my poor mother, my

brothers and sisters, whose grief is a greater trouble
to me than my small individual trials. The cross is
such a good and holy thing that only a very poor sort
of Christian would dare to complain of it, and if no
one but myself were concerned, I should be more apt
to rejoice than lament. In life and in death are we
not altogether our Lord's ? And what does it matter,
after all, whether we see the light of this world or not,
if only the eyes of our soul are enlightened so as to
see the True Eternal Light, Jesus Christ, dwelling in
us ? Remember me, my dear lord, at the holy altar, at
 BEARING THE CROSS. »9

the feet of that Divine Master, and pray that I may

carry His holy Cross as I ought. As you may suppose,
all the fine plans which had been made for or against
me are come to nothing. My vocation is simplified,
and the will of God, the only rule to be followed in all
this, is made plain. I only pray that the Emperor
may make a good choice when the time comes and
that he may have near him a man devoted to Holy
Church and to France. For my part, I shall return
to Rome, where my life will not be much changed by
my new infirmity, I can carry on my uninteresting
labours of the Rota by my hearing only, and I have
a little priestly ministry in working order. One only
needs one's tongue, ears, and legs, to preach and
hear confessions. Perhaps it will be quite a stroke of
luck for big sinners of the bashful sort to be able to
tell their story to a confessor who cannot see anything.
But for this accident of mine, I should have made it
my duty and pleasure to ask your hospitality for a few
days at Poitiers ; as it is, I am difficult to move, and
must not run about any more. Farewell for the
present, my dear and kind Bishop, I embrace you
with all my heart, and can love you very much,
thank God, without seeing you.
It must not be thought, however, that Mgr. de
Segur had no natural shrinking from suffering, no
opportunity for practising the virtue of resignation :
the cross weighed heavily, gladly as he bore it, and
this mingling of sorrow and joy is evident in many
of his letters. " This is a grand day with me," he
writes on the 2nd of September, to a young Fran
90 GASTON DE SEGUR.

ciscan novice ; " it is thirteen years since I became

quite blind, since our good and merciful God forced
me to enter a little portable cloister, of which only
He can break the enclosure." To his sister Sabine
he writes : " The Gospel says, * If thy eye be single,
thy whole body shall be lightsome.' Now, my eye
is more than that. I have there my little monastery,
my moveable cloister, which binds me to poverty
and obedience ; to poverty, by cutting me off from
everything whether I will or no ; to obedience, by
making me continually dependent on some one
the whole day long. Blessed be God ! Ask Him
always to be merciful to me, and to keep me on
the Cross, close beside Him, like the good thief."
And again : " It is a great blessing, a priceless boon,
to be fastened to the Cross by any infirmity, above
all by blindness ; it is a continual participation in
the Crucifixion of Jesus, and a kind of religious
consecration which compels you to renounce the
world with all its insane delights. . . • It is like a
drop of heavenly wormwood which christianizes every
draught which the world offers, an elixir, as it were,
against naturalism." What he loved, in his blind
ness, then, was the Will of God, the Cross of Christ,
the means of giving himself more exclusively to the
salvation of souls ; but none the less, his joyous
cheerfulness through that night of twenty-seven
years was one long act of heroic virtue.
To Gaston's family, and his many devoted friends
resignation was more difficult. His poor father
 AN AGED SAINT. 91

cannot believe that God will send so terrible a trial

as blindness to " his good and holy son, the blessing
of the whole family, Who has always made so good
a use of his eyesight."
Mgr. Bastide Writes to Madame de Segur from
Rome that he is ready to believe that God will cure
his friend by a miracle, because, if there are few who
can bear adversity well, there are fewer still who
can stand the test of honours and dignities, and that
Mgr. de Segur, being one of that rare sort, he cannot
but believe him destined to do a great work for God
in a high position. And Louis Veuillot, in a letter
worthy of that great writer, says that after all he
persists " in hoping that there is hope left, and
that the oculists, and, after or before the oculists,
the saints of God will do something for this sad
state of things."
M. Gay, who regards the question altogether from
the spiritual point of view, writes : " I bless God
for the peace He has given you in circumstances in
which so many would be cast down. I quite under
stand what you say about the leisure your condition
gives you for thinking of the only real good. In
truth, a Christian is never blind. ' He Who com
manded the light to shine out of darkness hath
shined in our hearts,' and for one who has that light,
the darkness itself is as bright as day."
But the soul which beyond all others rose, strong
and steadfast to the heights of courageous sanctity
at this time of trial was the saintly Countess
 GASTON DE SEGUR.

Rostopchine, whose long life of more than eighty

years was drawing to a close in almost incessant
prayer and communion with God. She had rejoiced
with a full heart over her grandson's conversion and
vocation, his labours and apostolic work in Rome ;
and now, with a still more fervent thankfulness she
rejoiced in the " fiery trial " by which the great
Lover of souls was perfecting the one so dear to
Him. We will give an extract from a letter to
her daughter and grandson, written a month after
he was struck with complete blindness :

Moscow, October 12.

My dear Sophie, my dear Gaston,—An illness,
which has been, however, neither long nor painful, has
hindered me from answering you. Gaston is, then,
very dear to God, since He has sent him a trial so
severe as the loss of sight. I look upon it as a pledge
of Divine grace, which only tries him in order to
crown his submission, his faith, his love for God, his
filial piety. Ah, my daughter ! how happy are you to
be the mother of a saint.
My son, my dear and precious son, you have been
struck down like St. Paul ; nay, if I dared say so,
more blessedly even, since it was not when you were
persecuting Jesus Christ, but when you were seeking
His glory, and tHe good of your neighbour. I ought
rather to ask your blessing than to give you mine ;
and yet I do bless you in my character of an old wo
man, of a worshipper of the God you worship, of
your grandmother, and of one of the poor of our Lord,
 A GREAT JOY. 93

before Whom, thanks to my age and His mercy, I

hope very soon to stand.

As the Marquis de Segur says, " This is indeed

the letter of a saint to a saint, and one seems to be
listening to an echo of the voice of Felicitas or
Symphorosa, encouraging her children to martyr
dom." And in the words of Mgr. de Segur to his
sister, we may ask, " Is not the martyrdom of life
sometimes as sharp as that of death ? "
Mgr. de Segur, though at once and absolutely
refusing to realize any of the visions of ecclesiastical
dignities which so many of his friends cherished for
him, or rather for the interests of the Church
through him, did not immediately resign his official
position at Rome. Great medical authorities
persisted in the opinion that the cause of his
blindness was a simple cataract curable by an
operation, and he himself was almost alone in
maintaining a contrary conviction. He thought
too, with the Christian prudence so beautifully
allied in him with enthusiastic fervour, that his
definitive resolution would be more safely and
wisely formed after longer delay ; accordingly he
returned to Rome, where his life, for the next
fifteen months, was much the same as before,
except for the limitations made necessary by his
infirmity.
One immense joy was his shortly after his return
to Rome, that of being there for the glorious 8th of
94 GASTON DE SEGUR.

December, 1854. He was present at all the cere

monies which preceded and followed the procla
mation of the dogma, and it was with indescribable
emotion that, standing among the hundred thousand
candles in St. Peter's, to whose light his eyes were
shut, he heard the voice of Pius IX. declare that
Mary was Immaculate in her Conception : the
memory of that day was the illumination of the
rest of his life.
A few days after this great day, Mgr. de Segur
had a heavy sorrow to endure in the death of a
cousin, Louis de Villeneuve, a young naval officer
to whom he was greatly attached, and with whom
he had kept up a regular correspondence ever since
he left France for the Crimea. He died, very
suddenly, under the walls of Eupatoria : his mother's
despair was heart-rending, and, like all his family,
it was to Mgr. de Segur that she turned for the
consolation he was always so ready and able to
give. On a picture, found in the young officer's
" Following of Christ," he had written on the day
of his First Communion, " Gaston de Segur came
to Orleans : he has taught me to love God without
slavish fear. His advice was this : purity, filial
love, consolation sought from our Blessed Lady,
daily prayer." Faithful to the end to what the
Marquis calls " this brief and holy programme,"
death found his young cousin, as the chaplain of
his ship bore witness, surprised indeed, but not
unprepared.
 PIUS IX. AT THE CHOLERA HOSPITAL. 95

It was a great happiness to Mgr. de Segur during

these last months of his Roman residence to find
the French army of occupation, officers and soldiers
alike, animated by a truly Christian spirit which
had come out very brightly in the autumn of this
year when the terrible scourge of the cholera
made so many victims in the little army. The fol
lowing characteristic extract from a letter of their
brave chaplain's, tells of the Pope's visit to the
cholera hospital and how the Abb6 Bastide became
Mgr, Bastide.

Rome, September 24, 1854.

My very dear friend,
At four o'clock last Friday, when we least expected
it, the Holy Father came to visit our poor cholera
patients at the hospital Santa Teresa. You have no
idea what efforts were made to make the Pope give
up an action so useful and edifying to all : thanks to
Xavier de Merode, the Holy Father's goodness of
heart and piety won the day. It must be owned that
Xavier worked -away as he never did before—so I
leave you to judge ! He must have made the whole
Papal Court tremble more than ever this time at his
plain-speaking, and the visit was a regular triumph
for him ; you could see it in his face, which was as
radiant as Pio Nono's. Some of our soldiers were
motionless, open-mouthed—dumb with astonishment :
others showed their joy very touchingly, crossing
themselves devoutly as the Holy Father drew near.
One poor chasseur de Vincennes who had got right after
96 GASTON DE SEGUR.

a very wild life, whose confession I had just heard,

instantly held out a common blue glass rosary to be
blessed. I think the Pope was taken with his honest
face, he came up to him, showed him especial tender
ness and said, " Take this medal quickly, my child ;
it is the only one I have with me, and I do not want
to make the rest jealous." - Speaking of faces, I can
give you no idea of the good X 's: he had come
post-haste from Sant' Andrea, to receive the Pope.
He "was pale and blue at the same time, so that I
could not help crying out : " The Pope will give him
the cholera! " "Ma, davvero," said the Holy Father,
" it looks like it ! " To be brief, our friend, the
doctor, the officer on guard, chaplain, infirmarians,
all were evidently touched by the presence of the
Holy Father, who spent a good half-hour with us.
M. Coytier, as he escorted him out, said very grace
fully : " Holy Father, all France, above all her army,
will thank you for the noble and courageous action
you have just performed." Then the Pope turned
round : we were all on our knees at the entrance of
the Hospital, and the street Quattro-Fontane was full
of people : " May God reward you," he said as he
went away, " for what you have done : may He bless
you and give you strength always to do your duties
well."
Now, Monseigneur, you must know that after this
visit, which should have brought us nothing but
blessings, your humble servant and friend, in conse
quence of being among the cholera-patients, has sud
denly turned rather purple. It is my throat which is
 MONSJGNORE BASTIDE. 97

affected. Now, do not be alarmed, there is nothing

serious in my condition. The truth is just this :
yesterday, as we were quietly sitting at supper, Xavier
de Merode sent his new servant, (a kind of bat he has
discovered among the ruins of Santa-Balbina) with a
huge paper from Mgr. de Medici announcing my
appointment as cameriere to His Holiness. I believe
these camerieri are the same who walk all in red at
the Corpus Domini procession. I thought at first that
it was Xavier's doing, and I really was rather glad,
because it is a certificate from the Pope that I was
not afraid of danger, but when I saw Xavier come
the next minute to pull a nice new collerino from my
neck and give me his own instead—a ragged concern,
but a purple one !—I was touched, because I was
assured that this idea was the Holy Father's own.
Indeed, Xavier called his attention to the fact that
this dignity was a difficult one to accept and to bear
in France—but the Pope said " O never mind, the
Abbe Bastide has plenty of sense, he will bear it as
it ought to be borne." And those words are a
thousand times more to me than any imaginable
titles.

The title was, however, far from- being an empty

honour : all the army knew the history of it ; and
his influence and the good it enabled him to do were
much increased in consequence. Mgr. de Segur
had a great wish for his friend's prestige to be still
further enhanced by the Cross of the Legion of
Honour. He knew that Napoleon III. had the
intention of sending it to himself, and he now wrote
H
98 GASTON DE SEGUR.

to the Emperor positively declining the Cross,

and begging him to transfer it to Mgr. Bastide,
the Christian-soldier so worthy to wear it. He
succeeded in the end, but not for some time : it
was not till two years later that his petition was
granted.
 CHAPTER VI.

Apostolate in Paris.

It was on the 29th of January, the feast of

St. Francis of Sales, 1856, that Mgr. de Segur, after
holding the office of Auditor of the Rota in Rome
for four years, took possession of the apartment in
the Rue du Bac, in which the remaining twenty-five
years of his life were spent. He had felt it his duty
to make a fair trial of the condition in which his
blindness placed him, to judge calmly as to the best
way of serving God under these circumstances, and
the result was a firm conviction that his proper
sphere was Paris, among the soldiers, workmen, and
little ones to whom the first-fruits of his priesthood
had been dedicated.
No sooner was his course clear than his resigna
tion was a settled thing; but before it could be
accepted by the Pope and the Emperor it was
necessary to arrange his future position in a manner
suitable to the high functions he had discharged, his
standing in Rome, and the requirements of his
infirmity. A canonry of the first order of the
Chapter of Saint Denys seemed all that could be
desired, but there were difficulties. All the canons
100 GASTON DE SEGUR.

of the first order are bishops, and it is contrary to

canon law for a blind man to receive episcopal
consecration. This difficulty was met by a Papal
brief conferring on Mgr, de Segur the office of
Apostolic Protonotary, with all the dignities and
privileges which are enjoyed by members of the
episcopal order ; thus enabling the French Govern
ment to appoint him to the canonry. The life of
the Roman prelate was closed, the Catholic mission
of Mgr. de S6gur in France was to begin, In the
twenty-five years that followed, the only changes
were the consequence of the growth cf his apostolate,
with the exception of occasional visits to Rome ;
and henceforward his biographer ceases to follow
any chronological order, presenting us, instead, with
a series of pictures from the life which was now
filled to overflowing with incessant and multiplied
labours in the Master's vineyard,
The Abb6 Louis Klingenhoffen accompanied him
as his secretary, in which capacity he remained till
his return to Rome on his admission to the priestr
hood. He was succeeded by the Abbe Diringer,
whose name is inseparable from that of the venerable
prelate, to whom he was eyes and hand for more
than twenty years. The following extract is from a
letter in which Mgr, de S6gur describes his view of
their relations :

My dear Abb6,—Just another month of vacation,

and you will be my slave, I shall do my best, for,
 A MODEL SERVANT. 101

and in the love of our Lord, to lighten the task, which

will at times be both difficult and wearisome in
consequence of the infirmity which God in His mercy,
has sent me, and you, on your side, will try from the
same motive, to bear my daily imperfections, and to
carry that part of the cross which will rest on your
shoulders. . . . We shall live as priests should—that
is to say, simply, laboriously, and rather hardly. May
God bless you, and increase in both of us His Divine
charity.

Hardly less important than the choice of a secre

tary was that of a personal attendant, and here too
Mgr. de Segur was singularly fortunate. He had
been greatly struck in Rome by a young soldier*
whose upright manly character and childlike piety
influenced many of his comrades in a remarkable
way. Methol, that was his name, was encouraged
to come to the Palazzo Brancadoro, and the more
this simple loyal soul became known to his host,
the more he valued and trusted him, so that whert
his return to Paris was determined, Mgr. de Segur
proposed to take him into his service. M6thol was
the eldest of a Basque family, and in that part of
France, in defiance of the civil code, the old tradi
tions were kept up by which the paternal inheritance
fell to the eldest son, whose duty it was to provide
for the rest. In order to attach himself to Mgr.
de Segur, therefore, it was necessary for Methol to
resign his right of primogeniture to his next brother.
This he did without hesitation, the happiness of
102 GASTON DE SEGUR.

living with the priest he had loved and venerated in

Rome made up for any sacrifice. Methol entered
the house in the Rue du Bac at the same time as
his master: and to the day of his death was the
very model of a faithful servant. That long and
loving service included many varied offices : he was
treasurer, man of business, confidant and adminis
trator of his master's charities. It was a difficult
post in many ways, requiring at least as much tact
and intelligence as goodwill ; but the Marquis bears
testimony to the perfect manner in which its duties
were discharged ; and in comparing Methol with the
faithful servant of the Saint to whom Mgr. de Segur
was so devoted, and to whom he bore so great a
resemblance, speaks of him as having been "another
Rolland to another Francis of Sales." It is worth
while, in days when the Christian relations between
master and servant are so little understood, to give
an extract from a letter in which Mgr. de Segur
gives his views on the subject :
I add a few words to my brother's letter, my dear
good Methol, in order to make things quite clear, and
to tell you what I expect of you if you take service
with me. What I desire above all in the two men I
mean to employ, of whom you shall, if you like, be one,
is a regular Christian life, more like that of religious
than of ordinary servants, and also the assurance that
they are happy with me, and that they will remain
with me all my life. I want them to see in me not a
master who pays them, but a father they obey from
 IN THE RUE DU BAC. 103

respect and affection for the love of God. Of course

this does not imply that I shall not pay you regular
wages, which my brother's last letter has clearly
explained : but, once more, these wages and everything
connected with them are only to be secondary con
siderations with both of us. It is a brother and a son
I want to have about me. I know this is not the way
in which masters and servants usually look at things ;
and that is why I urge it upon you, my dear Methol,
to reflect soberly before making up your mind, so that
there may be no disappointment afterwards. You see,
it is an important step to decide upon : let me hear
directly you have done so. . . . Now, my friend, adieu,
and whatever your resolution may be, you may be
sure that I shall always feel as kindly towards you as
now.

The other servant whom Mgr. de Segur engaged

was an old comrade of Methol's, a Basque like
himself; he too remained in his service to the end
of his life.
A few words, now, of the apartment in the
Rue du Bac, which Christian piety still reveres as
a sanctuary. It is the second floor ; the stairs are
worn by the feet of the countless visitors who came
and went for five-and-twenty years. The first
object that meets the eye on entering is a large
statue of our Lady, before which a lamp is always
burning. Mgr. de Segur never returned home
without saying a ' Hail Mary' on his knees before
the image of her whom he spoke of as "the
104 GASTON DE SEGUR.

Mistress of the house." The sitting-room looks

over a small garden to the church of St. Thomas
d'Aquin, and the blind prelate delighted in being
able to assist at the offices of his parish church
without leaving home. His real " home " was the
chapel ; and the number of hours which he passed
there, day and night, in adoration before the
Blessed Sacrament, is known only to God and
His angels. There is something very beautiful and
touching in his care and anxiety to adorn and
beautify for the Master dwelling there the chapel
which his own eyes never saw. " Let us do our
very best ; " he writes during one of his absences
from Paris to the faithful M6thol, who was charged
with the superintendence of some improvements ;
" if we lodge our Lord as well as ever we can here,
there will be a chance of His doing the same for us
in Paradise."
Mgr. de Segur rose for some years at six, but as
he grew older and slept less, the time was changed
to five. While dressing, he was in the habit of
reciting prayers and psalms—" there really seemed
no end to them," the good M6thol used to say.
Then he went to the chapel, where, on Saturdays
and Sundays, some penitents would have been
waiting since six o'clock. His meditation was made
before rising, in order not to delay the confessions
which always occupied him up to the moment of
Mass, and were resumed directly after it. More
than once, on the eves of great feasts, he had to
 DAILY ROUTINE. 105

deprive himself of saying Mass, his penitents

succeeding each other without intermission from
six till eleven o'clock. Ordinarily, he did not
hear confessions after nine, unless M6thol, as some
times happened, was persuaded to plead for some
privileged persons, that is to say, some " big
sinners."
After hearing confessions, Mgr. de Segur was
occupied with his secretary till midday, when he
breakfasted ; then came visits of charity in the
interest of his many good works, on returning from
which they both made a visit to the Blessed Sacra
ment, and said Vespers together before leaving the
chapel. Then, writing again, unless it was an
afternoon for confessions. Saturdays were entirely
given up to his penitents. He heard confessions at
the College Stanislas from eleven to three, and in
his own chapel the rest of the day, the young clerks
and apprentices keeping him in the confessional
often till nearly eleven at night. Except on
Saturdays, Mgr. de Segur dined with his parents at
half-past six, and remained with them till nine,
when he said night prayers with his secretary and
servants in the chapel. After his mother's death,
he worked till seven, and seldom went out anywhere
to dinner, the time which had till then been given
to his family being restored to God. Such was the
usual daily routine, but in the first years of his
residence in Paris, while he was in health and full
vigour, there were many exceptions to the rule.
io6 GASTON DE SEGUR.

From one end of the city to the other there were

innumerable claims upon him, and he was sum
moned, now to a Patronage festivity, now to a
workman's soiree, or Catholic cercle, or a distribution
of prizes ; there were sermons, retreats, and missions,
too; often in far-distant faubourgs. On such
occasions he made a point of doing honour to his
guests, by wearing his purple cassock and the order
of his chapter, and poor Madame de Segur's heart
sank when he came to dine with her thus attired.
She knew it meant the loss of his company for the
evening for her, and a good deal of extra fatigue for
him, but she loved God and His poor too well not
to make her sacrifice very willingly.
To conclude this imperfect sketch of a life al
together filled by God, we may add that Gaston
de Segur never went out, however often or however
hastily he might be called upon to do so, without
entering his chapel to kiss the ground and make one
rapid fervent act of adoration to the Divine Master
of his house and his soul.
The first good work which occupied Mgr. de Segur
on his return to Paris was the one which always
held the first place in his affections, the Patronages
of apprentices ; the very day after his arrival he
opened a retreat at the house of our Lady of Na
zareth, but it was the Patronage of the Rue de
Grenelle to which, as it was close at hand, he de
voted himself most completely. The council of
this house was composed of the best and most pious
 PATRONAGE WORK.

of the lads themselves, under the wise and prudent

guidance of the excellent Frere Baudime. One of
the priests of St. Thomas d'Aquin was their vol
untary chaplain, and the Patronage had gradually
become the centre of Christian life for the youths
engaged in business or workshops throughout
the Faubourg St. Germain. The work, already
thoroughly organized and flourishing, received a
fresh impulse, and acquired a more extensive
development from Mgr. de Segur's personal influence
and the irresistible charm by which he always won
the hearts of the young. He was the life of the
weekry and quarterly meetings, and all were wel
comed to the house in the Rue du Bac as freely
and affectionately as were the noisy visitors in the
Rue Cassette in the early days of Gaston de Segur's
priesthood. Every Sunday he said Mass for them
and gave them an instruction, receiving all who had
anything to say to him privately afterwards. His
name was a household word among them, and so,
unconsciously, they too became his coadjutors in the
apostolic work. Their companions were eager to
see and know this wonderful blind prelate who was
so holy and kind and cheery, so ready to comfort
and to forgive, who knew always how to say the
right thing whether one was merry or sad : and so,
they too fell under the charm, and the circle spread
and widened. The quarterly meetings were some
thing special : only the members and their families
were admitted, and Mgr. de Segur never failed to
io8 - GASTON DE SEGUR.

provide the attraction of good music or little

dramatic scenes and recitations. With his own
simple grace and courtesy he called on several of
the most distinguished artistes of Paris, to ask this
favour of them " for the love of God and the poor,"
as though the subject were as familiar to them as
to himself ; and his request never failed to meet
with a ready and generous consent.
Besides the abundant help these concerts and
recitations brought to his different ceuvres, Mgr. de
Segur liked to get acquainted with the artist world ;
most of those who composed it were, indeed,
absolutely without religion, but nearly all were
liberal and kind-hearted, and he knew that there
was no surer way of benefiting their souls than by
leading them to help the poor. Like Soeur Rosalie,
he delighted in this interchange of material and
spiritual alms, and he used to say that by moving
these generous hearts to works of charity he might
very likely be preparing the way for Christian
deaths. Airtong the great artistes who were most
ready to give their help, honourable mention is
made of Roger, Faure, and Mme. Carvalho.
After a very brilliant and successful concert, at
which they had sung, Mgr. de Segur called on them
to express his gratitude and gave them all a
handsomely bound copy of the " Reponses." One
of the party, a Jew, was naturally omitted, but he
appealed to Mgr. de Segur against his exclusion,
and begged for the souvenir, which, of course, he
 THE CHILDREN'S CONFERENCE. 109

received. Mme. Carvalho's copy became historical :

when acting for the first time the part of Marguerite
in " Faust," which she made so peculiarly her own,
she objected to use a missal for the Church scene,
and took up the copy of the " Reponses" instead.
Perhaps she thought it had brought her luck :
anyhow, she would never use another book for
this scene, which was her companion at 300
representations.
Before long, Mgr. de Segur had established,
among the most pious of the members, a little con
ference of St, Vincent of Paul. He never missed
one' of the meetings, and trained the young Brothers
himself in the science of corporal and spiritual
almsgiving. It was a work after his own heart,
this fostering of "the charities of poor to poor,"
and never was he happier than when talking to
these dear children of his about their work, thus,
as the Marquis beautifully says, "making charity
the safeguard of their faith and perseverance."
And he did not forget the rich children, either : he
formed a sort of association among them by which
they became the patrons of his apprentices and
poor. They had their meetings in the house in
the Rue du Bac, each child contributing an alms
of a hundred francs yearly, part of which they had
to raise by a quite among their friends. In this way
nearly two thousand francs were collected yearly.
The fatherly affection of Mgr. de Segur accom
panied his " patronage children " throughout their
no GASTON DE SEGUR.

lives. He exerted himself to find suitable places

for them, he officiated at their marriages, baptized
their children, visited and consoled them in sickness
and prepared them for the last sacraments. Often
and often after a death in a poor family, he would
return later in the evening to take his turn of
watching and praying beside the dead, and unless
it was absolutely impossible, he always joined the
humble train of mourners at the funeral.
There are many who remember the death of a
young workman, one of the dearest of Mgr. de
Segur's children, who had been, from childhood,
the model of a young Christian ; the blind prelate
followed the coffin, giving his arm to the poor father,
all the members of the Patronage walking behind.
A murmur of affection and admiration ran through
the crowd of spectators at the sight of the tall figure,
bare-headed, supporting and at the same time guided
by the father of young Athanase Rousselle, and
when the humble procession set out from Saint-
Sulpice to the cemetery, it made its way through
a densely packed crowd. No wonder that, twenty-
four years later, the inhabitants of the quartier
thronged to Notre Dame to return to the apostle
of the poor working men of Paris the same respect
ful offices which he had so often paid to them.
One little detail—the more touching for its littleness
—which the Marquis gives in speaking of Athanase
is this : Mgr. de Segur knew that it was his custom
to bring his mother an almond-cake every year on
 WANDERERS FROM THE FOLD. ill

her feast, and from the death of her boy till her
own, poor Madeleine Rousselle received one every
22nd of July, in the name of her dead son, from him
who had been so true a father to him.
There were, of course, many who, in the dangers
and temptations of Paris, forgot the pious lessons
of their boyhood and wandered far away from the
safe shelter of the fold. But, sooner or later, the
strayed sheep came back. He used to say it was
always so ; the impression made by his words and
example, and by his unwearied devotion, was never
effaced. Sometimes it would be a time of trial,
sometimes the purifying effect of an bonest affection,
sometimes the pressure of sickness or the shadow
of death, by which God's grace spoke to their
hearts : and then, whether they arose, like the
prodigal, and went to their father, or whether he
sought them out, they were sure of the same glad
welcome : he never despaired of any one, he never
doubted that he should win back to Christ the souls
that had once known the sweetness of His yoke :
what wonder then, that such victories were gained
by the unfailing charity that " hopeth all things ? "
Side by side with his work among the Patronages
was one for the young of a different class ; we
allude to his devoted labours among the pupils of
the College Stanislas, labours which occupied him
nearly to the end of his life, but on which it is
scarcely necessary to dwell in this brief sketch, as,
making the requisite allowance for the difference of
112 GASTON DE SEGUR.

class, they were much the same as those in the

Patronage. But a few words must be said of a
work very dear to the heart of Mgr. de Segur, that
of discovering and developing ecclesiastical voca
tions. This is, comparatively at least, easy when
the recruits for the priesthood are of the upper
class, but in the case of a working lad it is a case
beset with difficulties. There is the danger of
the dawning vocation being extinguished in the
poisonous atmosphere of a Paris workshop, there is
the opposition of parents, who dread the prospect
of years of sacrifice which must be faced, and the
loss of the wages when the young apprentice should
have become a journeyman. What Mgr. de Segur
did in this way is incalculable, he never suffered a
vocation to languish for lack of development, no
matter what obstacles were in the way. He charged
himself with bringing the education of the boys up
to the point necessary for admission to the " Little
Seminary," and his ingenuity in finding tutors
willing to teach the rudiments of Latin gratis was
something wonderful. He provided the necessary
pension, consecrating to this object most of the
income proceeding from his writings—amounting
sometimes to more than ten thousand francs a year
—he induced rich and pious families to adopt several
of his proteges by engaging to pay for one or more,
formed associations of ladies to collect subscriptions
for the same purpose, and gladly became himself a
beggar, to feed, clothe and train the future priests
 VOCATIONS. "3

of the sanctuary. In several dioceses the affection

of the bishops facilitated the matter greatly : this
was especially the case in that of Poitiers, thanks
to the warm attachment of the illustrious Mgr. Pie ;
and the Seminary of Montmorillon was the one he
loved best, and which received the largest number
of his spiritual children.
He had a great gift of discernment in this matter:
if he did not discover very marked signs of a vocation
in any of the youths at the College Stanislas who
consulted him on the subject, he quietly told the
boy not to enter on the question till his school-days
were over. " It is never well to precipitate these
matters of vocation, it is like gathering unripe
fruit," he wrote to one of these good lads, who was
anxious to settle the matter off hand, and who
afterwards became an excellent husband and father.
" I advise you to dismiss this important affair till
your studies are completed, till you are a man and
have to choose your state of life : till then your
vocation is to be a good student, pure, honourable
and God-fearing ; just keep to that." To another
he wrote : " Do not think about your vocation : it
is so much lost time : when you have to decide God
will enlighten you. Till then, remain quiet and go
on living from day to day with a good conscience
and good will."
But when he knew, by Divine illumination, that
the Master's call was clear and certain, he was not
afraid to brusquer things with a courage and confi-
i
"4 GASTON DE SEGUR.

dence always justified by the event. Once, a youth

of seventeen consulted him on this subject. His
previous director had put him off for a long time
from one confession to another, not considering it
a pressing matter. Mgr. de Segur questioned him
closely, prayed earnestly, and at their second inter
view said : " Well now, my dear boy, we have got
to Easter ; you must finish the year of study, and
enter the Seminary of Issy after the vacation." The
lad, though startled by a promptitude and decision
for which he was hardly prepared, accepted the
answer as the order of Providence and obeyed to
the letter. He never ceased to bless God for lead
ing him to "the blind saint," and he is now one
of the most admirable priests in France.
One day, Mgr. de Segur received a visit from the
Abbe Millot, Superior of the Ecclesiastical College
of Saint-Dizier, who came to offer him the sum of
sixty thousand francs if he was willing to undertake
the re-establishment of the little community of
" Clerics of St. Sulpice," which, after many vicissi
tudes, had been dispersed after the revolution of
1830. The matter was the more pressing from the
fact that the two Little Seminaries of Paris were
compelled by different circumstances to receive
boys whose vocations had not been sufficiently
tested. The offer was unhesitatingly accepted, on
the condition that M. Millot obtained the formal
and entire approval of Cardinal Morlot, the Arch
bishop of Paris. This was willingly given, a house
 ASSOCIATION OF ST. FRANCIS OF SALES. fr5

was taken at Auteuil, and M. Millot began the

work by receiving gratuitously, in honour of the
twelve Apostles, twelve boys whose singular piety
left little doubt of their perseverance. Mgr. de
Segur joined heart and soul in this good work, and
became the very life of the little community both at
Auteuil and at Issy, whither it was shortly moved.
Already one is induced to ask how it was possible
for one man, and that man blind, to carry on all
these ceaseless and absorbing works : and yet this
was not all, for before he had spent quite two years
in the Rue du Bac he had undertaken a charge
almost equal to the three others. This was the
Catholic Association of St. Francis of Sales, a work
which sprang from the very heart of Pius the Ninth,
and of which, notwithstanding his humble pro
testations to the contrary, Mgr. de Segur must be
regarded as the true founder. It was in 1856 that
Mgr. de Mermillod and Pere d'Alzon, the Superior
of the Fathers of the Assumption, called the at
tention of the Holy Father to the danger menacing
the faith of thousands from the proselytism of
Protestant sects and the machinations of secret
societies, and Pius the Ninth expressed his strong
desire to see formed a great association of faith,
prayer and alms, which should be, as he said, " a
kind of Home Propaganda." Immediately on their
return to Paris, Mgr. de Mermillod and Pere d'Alzon
called on Mgr. de Segur to ask him to allow a
meeting to be held in his salon for the purpose of
116 GASTON DE SEGUR.

consulting on the best means of realizing the Pope's

idea. He consented, and on the feast of St. Joseph,
1857, a very remarkable assembly of influential
Catholics was gathered together in the Rue du Bac
—Pere Lacordaire, the Peres de Ravignan, Olivaint,
and Ponlevoy, Pere Ratisbonne, MM. Hamon,
Desgenette and Deguerry, the venerated cures of
Saint-Sulpice, N.D. des Victoires, and the Made
leine, were amongst the religious and secular priests
present ; while conspicuous in the ranks of the laity
were Montalembert, Louis Veuillot, the Vicomte de
Melun, and Augustin Cochin. A very simple body
of statutes was drawn up, the ceuvre placed under
the patronage of St. Francis of Sales, and Mgr. de
Segur declared President, in spite of his repre
sentations that he had already more than he could
manage. However, he had to submit ; and as
usual, set to work as though he had nothing else to
attend to. The Bishops hastened to send their
cordial approval and promises of cooperation. The
good work was fairly started, the Pere d'Alzon being,
said Mgr. de Segur " the true founder," a statement
to which we must demur, for the Marquis's account
plainly shows that the honour of the foundation is
due to his saintly brother, who certainly had all the
labour of it. As a matter of fact, the meeting was
called for the purpose of explaining the Pope's
views, not of organizing the association. All were
unanimous in entrusting this onerous task to " the
blind saint," and in ardently desiring its success :
 GROWTH OF THE WORK. 117

but the majority, it seemed, were far from sanguine

as to the result. As to the good Father whom
Mgr. de Segur insisted on calling the "founder," he
appears, we must own, to have left the President in
the lurch. Mgr. de Segur says himself that after a
few months Pere d'Alzon left him " to settle matters
as best he could"—Se debrouiller de son mieux.
And how did he succeed ? The question even
now, can only be answered by saying that God gave
him extraordinary and special assistance. Before
the end of the year the work had numbered several
thousand associates and received more than thirty
thousand francs, which were applied to founding
schools, distributing good books, giving missions,
and repairing or supplying with necessaries poor and
neglected churches. As to Mgr. de Segur's organi
zation and management, one fact speaks volumes—
twenty-four years later, at his death, there was
nothing to alter, or correct, or improve. Everything
was the same as at the beginning, except that
instead of being established in forty dioceses, it was
so in every diocese in France and in many in
Belgium, Italy, Spain and Canada ; that the number
of associates was one million five hundred thousand,
and the amount distributed yearly, eight hundred
thousand francs. Think what these figures re
present—the souls saved, the children taught, the
sanctuaries restored ! Think, too, of the labours, the
self-sacrifice, which purchased these blessed results.
With unwearied patience and perseverance he sought
 GASTON DE SEGUR.

for the right persons to be employed in the mani

fold branches of the work ; it was his rule that
every one engaged in working for God and the
Church, from the highest to the lowest, should be,
in the fullest sense men of faith, and we cannot
doubt that to the strict and invariable application
of this principle is due in great measure the con
stant and increasing success of the Association of
St. Francis of Sales, surely one of the greatest and
most singularly blessed even in France, fruitful as
she has ever been of such works for the glory
of God.
One of the heaviest charges imposed on him by
his new duties was that of preaching the object of
the ceuvre in different parts of France. Fain would
we dwell on this part of his apostolic labours at
greater length, but we must content ourselves with
a few details of his visit to Annecy in 1865, when he
embraced the opportunity of the bi-centenary of the
canonization of St. Francis of Sales to preach the
work placed under his patronage in the very spot
sanctified by his relics. These were exposed for the
veneration of the faithful for some days before being
translated to the spot chosen by the saint for their
final resting-place, and from all the parishes, far and
near, processions, led by the cures, came flocking into
Annecy. The Bishop had begged Mgr. de Segur to
receive these good souls and say a few words to them;
it was just what he delighted in : " while Mgr. de
Mermillod preached the great sermons, requiring
 AT ANNECY. ng

eloquence, I preached the little ones," he said. For

hours he remained, sitting or standing near the shrine,
and as each little band of pilgrims gathered round it,
he spoke to them for a few minutes, with his own
charming familiarity and grace, of some passage in
the saint's life, some virtue which he especially loved
and practised. From time to time came processions
entirely formed of children from the schools and
orphanages : then, indeed, he was in his element ;
it might have been St. Francis himself teaching
these dear children of the poor the love of suffering
for the love of Christ, going into the details of their
simple lives and shewing them how to offer up to
their Lord reproofs and punishment, the heat which
tired them, the cold which pinched their little feet
and hands; and all because it was the will of God.
One most touching incident occurred, showing how
quickly one of these innocent souls responded to the
heroic teaching of the prelate for whom that holy
Will had chosen the same cross as for the little
Savoyard peasant. A poor woman, who had brought
her blind child to the shrine during one of Mgr. de
Segur's addresses, said at its conclusion : " Now,
darling, ask our dear Saint to beg the good God to
give you your sight." " Oh mother," was the
answer, " did not you hear the priest say we must
wish nothing but the will of God ? I am not going
to pray for my eyes, but for that."
 CHAPTER VII.

Mission-work and Trials.

Out of the great Catholic Association of which

some account was given in the last chapter arose a
work, which, although its existence was, from a
variety of causes, limited to a very few years,
cannot be passed over in this sketch, as it was of
Mgr. de Segur's creation and very dear to him ; its
results, too, were solid and encouraging. Its object
was to do for the spiritually destitute in the crowded
faubourgs of Paris what St. Vincent of Paul had
done, two centuries earlier, for those oppressed by
corporal sufferings. The field was so vast : the
population of these districts being more numerous
than that of the whole of Paris in the reign of Louis
the Sixteenth. Mgr. de Segur's idea was to collect
together those priests who were without parochial
charge, and whose occupations, such as those of
chaplains to religious communities and tutors in
wealthy families, left them some leisure time which
might be most profitably devoted to the work he
was meditating. Conferences were to be held for
organizing the plan and assigning to the different
priests the missions desired by the Cures of parishes,
 MISSIONS IN THE FA UBOURGS. 121

and each meeting was to conclude by a familiar

discourse from one of the members on a subject
decided on at the preceding conference, which was
to be a kind of exercise for the missionaries in the
way of addressing their future hearers.
Mgr. de Segur first consulted several of the most
pious and experienced Cur6s of Paris, from whom he
received advice and encouragement. Next, he
ascertained that there were plenty of priests able
and willing to work with him, there were not a few,
even, among the vicaires of the richer parishes, who
came forward and offered to give their evenings to
the proposed work. He then laid his scheme before
Cardinal Morlot, who bestowed on it his hearty
approbation and earnest benediction, and on the
feast of SS. Peter and Paul, 1858, the first conference
was held, followed in a few weeks by the first
mission in the Faubourg Saint-Jacques, which
succeeded even beyond the expectations of Mgr. de
Segur's eminently hopeful mind. His rule and
practice was to " preach the big truths (les grosses
verites) of the Catechism." Preachers often made a
mistake, he used to say, in taking for granted that
their hearers knew a great deal of which they are
in reality profoundly ignorant : the same truths
must be preached to shoeblacks and to senators.
Everywhere a plentiful harvest of souls rewarded
the labours of the missionaries. The venerable
Cure of Saint Louis-en-l'Ile—he was nearly a
hundred years old—told them with tears that they
122 GASTON DE SEGUR.

had " brought new life into his parish," and after a
Lent mission in another district, there were a
thousand more Easter Communions than in former
years. The Marquis gives a graphic account of the
mission at M6nilmontant, where, through the
negligence of the Government, there was only one
church, which could hardly, contain a thousand
persons, for a population of thirty thousand. These
poor people came in such crowds that it was neces
sary to station gendarmes at the doors to keep order ;
the sanctuary was filled with men in blouses up to
the altar-steps, and confessions went on till mid
night. Numbers of poor abandoned women and
sinners of every kind were brought back to God, and
not knowing how to show their gratitude to those
who had converted them, they arranged and ex
hibited a grand show of fireworks in their honour
on the last day of the mission. The work was,
indeed, singularly blessed ; there were large work
shops from which every man employed, the master
at their head, approached the sacraments after a
lifetime of neglect, and crowds of grown-up and
some aged persons made their First Communion.
One poor woman full of joy and thankfulness at
being reconciled with God, came a few days before
the close of the mission to the priest who had heard
her confession. " Ah, M. l'Abb6, how happy I am !
Now, if only you could get hold of my husband ! he
is a good fellow, but he will not hear of attending to
his soul. And yet he comes almost every day to
 SUCCESS OF THE (EUVRE. 123

the mission ; " and she went on to describe his

appearance and the part of the church he occupied.
" Now, do try to get at him ; he really isn't a bad
sort, perhaps he might be caught ! Only be sure
not to let him know I have been to confession, he
would be ready to kill me ! " Next day a workman
with a huge beard, which was one of the " points "
of the man in question, came to confession, and
when he had received absolution said : " You see,
M. l'Abbe, I have got a wife, not at all a pious
woman—quite the other way ! Now, couldn't you
manage to get her here ? I shall try to make some
excuse to bring her here to-morrow. Only, pray
don't tell her what I have been doing ; she would
make game of me ! " Of course the truth came out
next day, and the good priest " chaffed " both his
penitents for being " such a couple of geese as not
to trust each other," sending them away very happy
with a crucifix, a statue of our Lady, and two
prayer-books.
Mgr. de Segur always closed the missions by
giving the Papal Benediction with the Plenary
Indulgence, a favour granted to him by Pius the
Ninth for all his missions and retreats. He made
the ceremony as striking as possible, and the poor
inhabitants of the faubourgs, who had never wit
nessed it before, were deeply impressed. " When
we left the church," says the Abbe Diringer, " every
one wanted to see 'the blind bishop,' and it was a
difficulty sometimes to get through the crowd to the
124 GASTON DE SEGUR.

carriage ; the said carriage being a humble hired

affair, the driver of which never missed Mgr. de
Segur's instruction and benediction, always finding
some one to mind his horse, and nothing ever went
wrong in consequence."
It is not very clear from what cause this excellent
ceuvre des faubourgs came to an end, certainly not
from any want of sympathy on the part of the good
Cardinal Morlot, who had encouraged it to the
utmost from the first. Mgr. de Segur always felt
that it would have been an immense gain if the
Archbishop's enormous occupations could have
allowed of his coming, from time to time, among
these poor members of his flock, who are quite as
ready to be turned the right way as the wrong ; if,
as Augustin Cochin once suggested, there had been
stated times for his going to Notre Dame to receive
deputations from the different trades on their
patron's feast, to address them and give them his
blessing. " Who knows-," asks the Marquis de
Segur, "but that the horrors of the Commune might
thus have been prevented, and that even in the
moment of the wildest excitement, kindled for their
own ends by a few great criminals, the mass of the
people might not have been reacted upon by the
influence of religion and gratitude ? "
It has been seen that from the first Mgr. de Segur
was convinced that his blindness was incurable,
and that he had mapped out his life entirely with
reference to its permanence. He never could bring
 VISIT TO M. DUPONT. 125

himself to ask or even to desire anything else, so

that the visits which he made to the most celebrated
oculists of Paris, in deference to the wishes of his
family, must be regarded in the light of so many
acts of resignation. He even yielded so far to his
mother's wishes as to submit to an operation at the
hands of M. Nelaton, who, contrary to all the other
authorities who had been consulted, declared the
case to be a simple cataract removable by operation.
When this failed, the blow to the poor mother was
severe ; the sufferer himself had never expected any
other result, and he hoped that those he loved
would no longer cherish any idea of recovery. As
to human means, they had indeed abandoned all
hope ; but could not God, if He so pleased, work a
miracle for His servant ? It was proposed to visit
M. Dupont, and try the effect of the oil in the lamp
which he kept burning night and day before the
picture of the Holy Face, and by which so many
wonderful cures had been obtained. Mgr. de Segur
had already paid one visit to the " holy man of
Tours," and it seemed to him that, directly his eyes
had been anointed by the latter, he saw, in one
lightning flash, the Holy Face before which he
knelt. He described it most exactly to his mother,
and it is no wonder that, though the vision of an
instant was followed by total darkness, she should
have hoped much from a second visit. As usual,
his mother's wish prevailed, and he consented with
his own joyous serenity of manner.
126 GASTON DE SEGUR.

But what had his prayer been on that first

occasion, the prayer answered, if we may say so, by
the momentary sight of his Master's blood-stained,
thorn-crowned Face ? It had been the prayer which
was ever on his lips and in his heart, the prayer of
his Divine Lord, that the Father's Will might be
done ; and while consenting to make a second visit
to Tours, it was with a resolution to make no other
petition. M. Dupont ventured on a remonstrance,
writing to him that it is scarcely reasonable to expect
a corporal favour unless it is asked for clearly and
definitely, as the blind man asked in the Gospel,
Domine, ut videam. It was in vain ; he would only
say, Fiat Voluntas Tua and the Father's answer was
the continuance of the night, which was to last till
the eternal day should break and bid "the shadows
retire."
Once more he yielded to the longings of those who
loved him, and visited the saintly Cur6 d'Ars. His
prayers did not gain the grace they desired ; but for
both these great servants of God the meeting must
have been full of consolation. Mgr. de Segur knelt
for the Cure's blessing, who in vain represented that
it ought to be the other way ; the blind prelate
conquered at length in the contest of humility, by
alleging the reverence due to M. Vianney's white
hairs. They were soon engaged in conversation on
the subjects dearest to both, and it was some time
before Mgr. de Segur remembered to speak of his
mother's wishes. When he was about to take his
 VISIT TO ARS. 127

leave, the Cure d'Ars took from the mantel-piece a

little statue of St. John the Baptist, which he gave
to M6thol, saying; " Here, my son, keep the image
of your patron, as a remembrance of me."
Methol's name was Jean-Baptiste, but Mgr. de
Segur never called him by it, and this was the first
time that the holy cur6 ever saw him. After his
visitor had left, M. Vianney said ; " That blind man
sees better than we do ; " and later on in the day he
addressed a friend whom he met with the words ; "I
have just seen a saint;" words which may well be
remembered as coming from the lips of one who read
the hearts of men like a book.
So it was a fact to be accepted by all others now
as well as by himself, that the cross was to be borne
to the end of his life. And surely he was right in
regarding his blindness as a greater blessing than a
cure could have been, not only as regarded the work
of his own sanctification, but also the good of souls,
" Had he recovered his sight," says his brother,
"he would have been made a bishop, and the good
he did would have been local ; it is to be doubted,
too, whether he possessed the qualities of an adminis
trator, so necessary for a perfect bishop ; whereas, in
his state of blindness, his activity and success in the
service of the Church were incomparable, . . . sowing
broadcast good doctrine, good books, and Catholic
traditions, evangelizing and sanctifying numbers of
seminaries, giving to or training for the Church a store
of holy priests to carry on the work of his apostolate.
128 GASTON DE SEGUR.

Again, from a closer point of view, Mgr. de

Segur's blindness was a means of attracting and con
verting sinners, not only by the serenity with which
he bore the trial, but by the way it helped those
penitents who shrank, ashamed, from meeting the
eye of the confessor, not knowing, poor souls, how
wide is the mercy and how tender the compassion of
the minister of Jesus Christ, a mercy and compassion
which increase in proportion to the number and
heinousness of the sins of his penitents." Once,
when preaching a retreat at the University of Lille,
and exhorting the students to confession, he said,
" Come now ; if there are any of you who are a
little unwilling and ashamed to open your hearts to
a priest, see how convenient it will be to do so to me
who am blind and so cannot see you ! "
In 1858, Mgr. de Segur's much-loved sister, Sabine,
entered religion, and thenceforth some of his happiest
moments were spent in the little parlour of the Visita
tion Convent. He often said Mass in the Chapel,
and after his thanksgiving breakfasted in the parlour
while his sister talked with him on the other side of
the grille. His relations with the Community were
very close and affectionate ; he gave them conferences
in Lent, and frequently clothed and professed the
religious, who always welcomed him as a true father,
while the tie between himself and the sister, whose
guide, friend, and confidant he had ever been, was
only drawn closer since she gave herself to God.
Every year brought some new work to this
 THE CHURCH OF A UBE.

unwearied labourer in the vineyard. He became

president of a little ceuvre, which made very small
show, but was in reality great from the love of the
Blessed Sacrament which was its origin and spirit ;
that for the providing and keeping up of sanctuary
lamps. The rule of the Roman Ritual on this
point had been strangely neglected of late years in
France, especially in country parishes, and it was to
restore its observance that Mile, de Mauroy, a great
friend of Pius the Ninth, set on foot the Association
which, under the direction of Mgr. de Segur and
M. Hamon, the zealous cure of Saint-Sulpice,
entirely removed from France the reproach of so
flagrant a disrespect to the Blessed Sacrament. At
the death of Mgr. de Segur not only had more
than four thousand lamps been given to poor churches
and chapels, but more than thirty thousand asso
ciates were enrolled, who succeeded each other in
making an hour of adoration before the Blessed
Sacrament, placing themselves in spirit in the church
nearest to them.
The four years which followed his sister's religious
vocation were passed in the active and incessant
labours entailed by all these various apostolic works,
especially that of the evangelization of the faubourgs
of Paris. At the end of this period Mgr. de Segur,
having lost his excellent father, consecrated to God
a large portion of his inheritance by restoring and
beautifying the parish church of Aube, endeared to
him, as we have seen, by so many sacred asso-
J
 13° GASTON DE SEGUR.

ciations, and now made, by his reverent love, one

of the most beautiful country churches of the
diocese.
The year of his father's death, 1863, was marked
by one of the severest blows which can befall a
priest, the heavier, in this instance, from being
entirely unexpected. A day or two before the
Immaculate Conception, when his time was occu
pied from morning till night in hearing confessions,
one of his regular penitents, whom he loved as a
son, threw himself at his feet in an agony of remorse
and poured into his ears a terrible story. He and
four others, yielding to one of those strange and
frightful temptations which proceed directly from
the father of evil, had sworn to profane the Blessed
Sacrament by committing sacrilege. No sooner was
the sin accomplished than the wretched boy was
horror-struck at his act and rushed to the chapel to
confess it. Mgr. de Segur, suppressing every sign
of all he felt, and without uttering a word of reproach
(it is of course, from the penitent himself that all
this was learnt), gave him absolution, imposing on
him no other penance than that of one " Hail Mary."
The trembling boy, almost terrified at this calmness
and indulgence, could not help crying out : " Oh,
father! only that ? "
" Only that ; " was the grave sad answer. " Go
in peace and sin no more. I take the rest on
myself." And how was this promise kept ? First,
with the consent of his poor young penitent, he
 REPARATION. 131

sent for the companions of his guilt, brought them

to a repentant state, and reconciled them to God.
Then, in spite of his limited means and the vast
claims upon him, he had five thousand Masses of
expiation said ; he felt that no claim could equal
that of his Divine and outraged Lord, and that all
else must yield to the necessity of offering to Him
the only reparation equal to the offence. From
that day he bound himself to rise every night and
spend one or two hours before the Blessed Sacra
ment : and in order to do this without having to
rouse his faithful M6thol, he begged from the Abbot
of La Trappe at Mortagne, near Les Nouettes, a
large white Trappist's cowl, in which he could
easily wrap himself without assistance. The good
Abbot begged him to accept his own ; and thus
habited, Mgr. de Segur for fifteen years made his
vigil of expiation. If he ever missed doing so, it
was to go out with his servant, instead of retiring
to rest, to visit some one grievously sick, to pray
beside some corpse, to console some mourner:
works of mercy which—need it be said ?—were also
offered as acts of reparation. Then, calmly and
with absolute submission, he waited for the justice
of God to visit him.
A year had passed, and the feast of the Immacu
late Conception was approaching. It almost seemed
as though God had chosen the anniversary of the
sacrilege for a solemn acceptance of His servant's
offering of himself in reparation. The dignity and
132 GASTON DE SEGUR.

delicacy of the manner in which this distressing

passage in his life is related by his brother is beyond
all praise. He prefaces the account by expressing
the utmost respect for Mgr. Darboy, the greatest
admiration for his heroic conduct in remaining at
his post when the Government, headed by M. Thiers,
fled before the Commune, his meekly-borne captivity,
his death, which, like that of his predecessor, may
well be called a martyrdom. He excuses the
harshness of the Archbishop to Mgr. de Segur by
generously admitting that he thought himself
obliged to be severe in the defence of his office,
and then, calmly and temperately, he tells his tale.
Mgr. de Segur was aware that his views differed
widely, in many important particulars, from the
Archbishop's, and that the latter was fretted by the
exceptional position occupied in his diocese by one
of the leaders of " Ultramontanism ; " and it is fair
to conclude, with the Marquis, that Mgr. Darboy
was determined to take a step which should impress
on the people of Paris that Mgr. de Segur was
entirely dependent on him. Accordingly, when his
authorization was requested for solemnizing a
marriage in the chapel of the Rue du Bac, he
refused it, and went on to speak with great bitter
ness of an interview between the Pope and Mgr. de
Segur, in which, he said, the latter made calum
nious accusations against himself and other bishops.
In speaking of the painful scene, the blind Prelate
regretted that, in the surprise and shock of this
 A GREAT CROSS. 133

unexpected attack, he failed to meet it in the only

way which could have protected him, that is, by
replying that the interview had been confidential,
and that what had passed was therefore the secret
of the Holy Father. Instead of this, he eagerly
disclaimed all intention of disrespect, declared
much that had been reported to be inaccurate, and
begged the Archbishop to observe that the subject
of the interview had been the liberal and Gallican
opinions of which he made no secret. Mgr. Darboy
replied that as his information came from Rome,
to deny its accuracy was to call in question the
veracity of either His Holiness or Cardinal Antonelli.
" Pardon me, monseigneur," was the calm answer,
" it is possible to be mistaken without being false."
In conclusion the Archbishop said that he required
from him a declaration making full amends for the
wrong he and his colleagues had suffered.
The question was : how to do this ? and Mgr. de
Segur could not see his way. He waited some weeks,
and then, as nothing further transpired, he began to
hope that the Archbishop would be satisfied with
the sharp reprimand he had given. Then came a
letter threatening him with suspension unless a
satisfactory declaration in writing were received in
three days. Mgr. de Segur consulted the Bishop of
Poitiers, who unhesitatingly advised his yielding to
the requirements of the Archbishop to the utmost
extent possible, and accordingly he sent in an act of
submission which he hoped would be deemed suffi
134 GASTON DE SEGUR.

cient. In the evening, he was hearing confessions at

the Coll6ge Stanislas. The Abb6 Diringer arrived
with a letter from the Archbishop, forbidding
Mgr. de Segur to preach or hear confessions in his
diocese. There was a moment's silence ; then
falling on his knees before the Crucifix in the
sacristy he made the sacrifice of his interrupted
labours, of his injured honour. He asked the
Superior of the College to tell the boys he was
obliged to leave and nothing more, and on returning
home, quietly told his household what had hap
pened : " St. Philip Neri," he said, " was suspended
for six years by the Pope ; now it is only my
Archbishop who has suspended me, so I cannot
complain." Then, going into the chapel with
them, he bade them join him in reciting, before the
Blessed Sacrament, some prayers suited to the
occasion. The first he chose was the Magnificat.
" We will recite it," he said, " to thank our Blessed
Lady for sending us this great opportunity of
sanctification."
All Mgr. de Segur's friends felt how urgent it was
to bring about at any cost an accommodation of
what threatened to be a great scandal. M. Lalanne,
the excellent Superior of the College Stanislas, and
a venerable Canon, who was highly respected by
the Archbishop, called on Mgr. de Segur to beg
him to make every possible concession to satisfy
Mgr. Darboy, who, they assured him, was very
anxious to retract the step which he had conceived
 LETTER FROM THE MARQUIS. 135

himself obliged to take. This good old priest had

ventured, with the authority bestowed on him by
his great age, to say to the Archbishop : " Mon-
seigneur, is it possible that you have suspended
the holiest priest in your diocese ? " To which
Mgr. Darboy replied without a sign of displeasure :
" He has failed in his duty to me, and he owes me
an apology." Needless to say that Mgr. de Segur
was ready to do his part : " I will do," he said,
" with the help of God, whatever I can without
injury to my office." Another declaration, fuller
and more explicit than the former one, was drawn
up and signed, with which Mgr. Darboy expressed
himself satisfied, and thus, thanks to the humility
of Mgr. de Segur and the generosity of the Arch
bishop, this painful affair was settled.
It had produced more excitement in Rome than
Paris, and the Pope certainly seems to have felt
very strongly on the subject, as appears by a letter
which Mgr. de Segur's biographer wrote to his
brother, and from which the following is an extract.

My dear Gaston,—I must tell you at once of the great

favour I have just received from the Pope, and which
certainly is due to you. Prince Borghese had pro
posed my taking Pierre (his younger brother) to the
Holy Father's Mass, so I wrote yesterday to Mgr.
Pacca, asking the Pope for this honour. . . . Yesterday
morning we heard his Mass, received Holy Communion
from him, and were about to withdraw, after hearing
a second Mass in thanksgiving, when we received a
136 GASTON DE SEGUR.

message from the Pope that he wished to see us. We

were shown into his study, in which five places were
prepared at the breakfast-table ... so we breakfasted
with him, talking to him just as one would to one's
father. . . . He spoke of you at once, saying : ' So your
brother's business is settled—that is all over; ' then he
said in Italian to Prince Borghese : ' That affair has
not ended in the way I should have liked : when any
thing is said to the Pope, it is a secret which belongs
only to the Pope.' I said : ' Holy Father, I must warn
your Holiness that I understand what you say.' He
laughed and said : ' There—it is over—we will say no
more about it. It can't be helped, your brother is a
saint ! ' I think, as the Prince said when we went
away, that was a grand thing to hear from the lips of
him who canonizes the saints. You see, then, my dear
Gaston, that the Pope considers your fault to have
been an excess of virtue, and I feel what he said of
you to be a very great consolation. It is plain that
this rare favour of receiving me at his own table was
his charming and fatherly way of making known, first
to you, then to all the world, his opinion of your
affair. ... I have not had anything about it put in the
papers. I just leave the thing, for I do not think it is
for me to take anything upon myself in one sense or
another, knowing, as I do, that the honour done me by
the Pope goes far beyond me and is intended for others.
As we left the Vatican, Prince Borghese said that he
and I have to thank you for the honour : it is as clear
as daylight : Qui se humiliat exaltabitur.
Thus God answered His servant's prayer: it was
 THE CROWN OF SUFFERING. «37

a terrible trial, though a short one, the special sting

being in the hand by which the blow was dealt. He
told his most intimate friends that each succeeding
year, towards the feast of the Immaculate Con
ception, God sent him some particular trial to re
mind him of the sacrilege of 1863 and the expiation
he had promised. The reminder of 1869 was a very
sharp one. It was on the feast itself, the first day
of the Vatican Council, a day which he had desired
so ardently and hailed so hopefully. On that very
morning, his name was posted at the door of
St. Peter's, in the sight of all the bishops of the
Christian world, between the names of Dr. Dollinger
and the unhappy Pere Hyacinthe. By some strange
accident, in spite of the holiness of the writer and
the particular affection borne to him by the Pope,
the Italian translation of one of his treatises had
been placed on the Index, without giving him the
opportunity of explanation or correction. A Bishop
who was a great friend of his, writing to him on the
subject, said : " Seeing you in such company made
me think of our Lord between two thieves."
It was, as the Marquis says, a blow to his honour
as a Catholic writer, as the suspension five years be
fore had been to his honour as a priest. He always
submitted his works to be examined by good theolo
gians before publishing them, and he was utterly un
prepared for their being found assailable in any point.
He knew indeed that in a dogmatic treatise a very
small error is sufficient to place it on the Index : still
138 GASTON DE SEGUR.

the blow was a very severe one, and he said that but
for God's support he felt as if it would turn his
brain. The very day on which the news reached
him he sent a public submission, full of exquisite
humility, to the Univers, and instantly suppressed
the whole of the French edition of his treatise,
(though it was the Italian translation only which had
been condemned), and re-wrote it with great care.
There can be no better commentary on this painful
passage in Mgr. de Segur's life than the eloquent
passage from his funeral oration by Mgr. de
Mermillod, quoted by the Marquis de Segur :

Henceforth, there was nothing lacking to his sa

cerdotal crown. Crucified in his body by blindness,
humiliated in his priestly character by the suspension
which ordinarily strikes unworthy or rebellious priests,
in his reputation as an author by the condemnation of
the Holy Roman Church of which he was the devoted
son and champion, struck by his Archbishop and by
the Pope in turn, he knew, like his Divine Master, the
meaning of suffering. Thus, by accepting his covenant
with the Cross, God let all men see how worthy he was
to carry it, and that he had a right to preach it by his
written and spoken word, because he preached it more
eloquently still by his example.
 CHAPTER VIII.
Labours for the sick and the army.
Very high in the long list of Mgr. de Segur's
friends must be placed the sons of St. Francis of
Assisi. Himself a Tertiary of his Order, he preached
devotion to the great patriarch through the whole of
his priestly life, and it was his great delight to spend
a few days from time to time in the Monastery at
Versailles. A few years before his death he cherished
the hope of retiring altogether from the world with
some other Tertiaries, and devoting himself exclu
sively to the evangelization of the working classes,
and although he abandoned the idea in deference to
those he consulted and who considered the step
unadvisable, he always observed the rule of the
Third Order, fasting three times a week as long as
his health made this possible.
His relations with the Brothers of St. John of God
were very close and affectionate. He visited their
house in the Rue Oudinot very frequently, and sent
them as patients many young men, students and
others, knowing that they would find there physicians
for the soul as well as for the body, and many of them
were received by the good Brothers free of all charge.
140 GASTON DE SEGUR.

Of this number was Pierre Sazy, an orphan of

sixteen, whose story is very touching. He had been
adopted by a Protestant aunt, who was incessantly
urging him to abandon the Catholic faith, and who,
after years of persecution, giving up the attempt as
useless, turned him out of doors. The lad was
apprenticed to a gilder, with whom he lodged and
boarded during the week, but from Saturday to
Monday he was homeless and destitute. For six
successive Sundays this poor young confessor to the
faith had been absolutely without a mouthful of food,
and the nights, in bitter winter weather, had been
spent in wandering about the streets. At length he
providentially met a Sister of Charity who had
nursed his mother in her last illness, and she took
him to Mgr. de Segur, who received him with open
arms. Thenceforward his Sundays were spent in
the Rue du Bac. What a paradise that house
must have seemed to the poor waif of the Paris
streets, with its wholesome food, comfortable bed,
and the fatherly affection which welcomed him !
But the earthly paradise was soon exchanged for
the heavenly one ; cold and hunger had done their
work, and the doctor whom Mgr. de Segur consulted
pronounced Pierre to be in the last stage of con
sumption. He was taken to the Rue Oudinot, and
received by the good religious as an angel from
Heaven. Then followed three months of sufferings
borne joyfully for God's sake, of daily Communions,
of heavenly consolations, followed by a death so
 HOME FOR INCURABLE CHILDREN.

blessed that the Brothers spoke of it as a benedic

tion for their house.
They had another at Vaugirard, known as the
" house for incurable children," also frequently
visited by Mgr. de Segur, who was honorary presi
dent of the meetings of the lady patronesses, to
whom, as well as to the children, he always
addressed a few words. It was his aim to establish
a personal feeling on both sides, and he induced
many of the ladies, with excellent effect, to take a
particular child under their especial patronage,
whom they made it a duty to visit, encourage, and
reward. Here is a pretty instance of what the
Marquis calls, " the contagion of sanctity." Several
of the children were blind, and these were naturally
particularly noticed by Mgr. de Segur. One of
them, who was very unfortunate in stumbling against
obstacles, sometimes gave himself severe blows,
and once, after Mgr. de Segur's death, he came to
see the Abb6 Diringer with the mark of a deep gash
on his forehead. On being asked about it, he said :
" Oh it is nothing. I ran up against a door, but I don't
mind now, since Monseigneur gave me his prescrip
tion." "And what was it ? " "Well, he said to me
one day : Look here, my child ; whenever we blind
people give ourselves a knock, or get hurt in any way,
all we have to do is just to say, My good Jesus, I
thank You. Then it is all right. I took his advice,
and ever since I have not troubled myself about such
accidents: I thank God, and think no more about it."
 GASTON DE SEGUR.

The two years preceding the war brought many

trials to Mgr. de Segur. The first was the death of
his beloved sister Sabine, which, in spite of the
immense consolations which accompanied it, he
always spoke of as his greatest sorrow, except the
loss of his mother five years later. He had the first
warning of that crowning grief about this time.
Madame de Segur had an apoplectic stroke, and was
entirely given over by the doctor. Her son gave
her the last sacraments, which she received with
the utmost calmness and piety, and on being ex
horted to trust in God and to banish all fear and
anxiety, she answered simply : " I feel none. I quite
hope that God will receive me in His mercy."
Soon after, an old friend of the family arrived with
some water from Lourdes ; Mgr. de Segur put a few
drops on the wet cloths which bandaged her head ;
she at once fell quietly asleep and the next day was
out of danger. A few months later he made a
pilgrimage of thanksgiving to Lourdes, and thence
forward devotion to our Lady of Lourdes was a
prominent feature of his spiritual life.
Not long after his sister's death he had to endure
a trial of a very different kind. He had written a
pamphlet on Freemasonry, in which, with a courage
which some called rashness, he exposed many
horrors of that " Mystery of evil," even going so
far as to publish some secret documents communi
cated to him by perverted Catholics, who had after
wards repented and withdrawn from the society.
 THE FREEMASON. *43

Articles in the journals of the sect insulted him,

anonymous letters threatened his life, without ruffling
his calmness in the slightest degree. One morning
a stranger entered the chapel while he was saying
Mass. Both M. Diringer and M6thol noticed his
appearance as peculiar, there was a curious restless
ness in his manner, and his eyes were hidden hy
blue spctacles. After making his thanksgiving,
Mgr. de Segur went into the next room to hear
confessions, the stranger remaining in the chapel
till the last. At length his turn came; M6thol,
overpowered by some presentiment of evil, hid
himself behind the portiere with a knife in his hand.
The man abruptly asked Mgr. de Segur whether it
was possible to be a Freemason and yet remain a
Catholic ? Startled by the question and the tone in
which it was asked, Mgr. de Segur rose, saying,
"You are a Freemason, are you not? What are
you here for?" His visitor replied that his object
was to warn him that at a recent meeting his death
was resolved, in consequence of his writings against
secret societies. The blind prelate's answer was to
throw his arms round the unhappy man saying,
" Look what your Freemasonry is, which professes
to be a benevolent society! No sooner is it accused,
on irrefragable evidence, of revolutionary plans,
than it replies by a threat of assassination !"
The man disengaged himself from Mgr. de Segur's
embrace, saying, " It may be all very true, but I
am not here to argue. You once did a service to a
<44 GASTON DE SEGUR.

relation of mine, and I came, out of gratitude, to

give you this warning. Be on your guard, but tell
no one what I have done, as it would very likely be
my death." Mgr. de Segur tried in vain to persuade
the wretched man to break his accursed bonds ;
and he went away saying that he did not know
when the decree of death was to be carried out, but
that it would be before the opening of the Vatican
Council. Mgr. de Segur was fully convinced of the
man's truthfulness, and making the sacrifice of his
life he lived for some time as it were in the shadow
of death. Nothing would have been easier than to
carry out the threat, especially when we consider
his blindness. His door was open to all, and in the
discharge of . his sacred ministry, he was of course
continually alone with his visitors, but he changed
none of his habits for a single day, and no anxiety
or alarm for an instant ruffled his beautiful serenity.
Methol did, indeed, take upon himself now and
then to refuse admittance to some visitor whose
appearance seemed questionable. But as, after all,
an intruding assassin would most probably have
assumed a devout and edifying deportment, there
was really nothing for it but to trust Divine Provi
dence, and Methol, who was on guard long after his
master had forgotten the whole matter, was not at
ease till after the opening of the Council.
An incident took place shortly after the warning
just related, which seems, as the Marquis says, like
a special mark of God's favour sent to console
 A WONDERFUL CURE. M5

His servant under accumulated trials. He was

preaching the ceuvre of St. Francis of Sales at
Lorient, and one day when the sacristy of the
Church was full of priests and laymen, a respectable
woman made her way through the crowd leading
by the hand her little nephew, about six years old,
who had been quite blind for several months. The
doctors could do nothing for him, and the most
eminent among them gave it as his opinion that the
only chance was an operation, and his mother had
decided on taking him to Nantes for this purpose.
The child's aunt was, however, bent on first taking
him to Mgr. de Segur. " I shall ask him to give
F6lix his blessing," she said, " and I am sure that
then God will cure him." She made hef request,
and Mgr. de Segur taking the boy in his arms', laid
his hands on his eyes and blessed him solemnly.
Next morning, when the aunt brought Felix his
breakfast, and was preparing to feed him as usual,
he said, " What are you doing, aunt ? I can feed
myself. I see you and everybody quite well." In
fact, he was quite cured. The news spread quickly,
and when Mgr. de Segur, who was leaving Lorient
that day, went to the station, he could hardly make
his way through the crowd. He never mentioned
the matter himself, and it was not till after his
death that his family collected evidence on the
subject.
The Vatican Council was opened ; and Mgr. de
Segur, " debarred by his blindness from taking part
K
 GASTON DE SEGUR.

in its interior work, followed every phase of its

discussions with intense interest. Everywhere and
to all, by his writings and sermons and advice in
the confessional, he preached the spirit of obedience,
of humble cheerful submission to the authority of
the Church ; he showed how puerile and unbecoming
were the theological discussions which were turning
the heads of so many young men in the press, in
clubs, and salons. In every possible way, with
unwearied arguments, and patient charity, he re
iterated the old Catholic axiom of true faith and
true humility : Ubi Petrus, ibi Ecclesia."
No sooner was the Papal Infallibility defined than
the terrible Franco-Prussian war broke out. The
Emperor Napoleon, like his uncle, had brought
ruin on himself and his dynasty by a sacrilegious
attack on the Vicar of Christ, and it is impossible,
as the Marquis de Segur says, not to see more than
mere accident in the remarkable coincidences which
he points out. The disaster at Reichsoffen befel on
the anniversary of the desertion of Rome by the
French army, the battle of Sedan was fought on
the 2nd of September, the day of the meeting at
Plombieres and of the Emperor's fatal Faites vite.
Paris was invested by the Prussians on the same
day that Rome was invested by the Piedmontese
troops, a day which was, moreover, the anniversary
of Castelfidardo, and the eve of the apparition at
La Salette when our Lady announced the misfor
tunes of France and Rome.
 IN BRITTANY. 147

This year Mgr. de Segur passed his holidays at

his sister's residence, Kermadio, near Sainte-Anne-
d'Auray, where their mother had also gone. No
one thought then that the siege of Paris would last
beyond a few weeks, and he for a time sharing these
illusions, was very willing to await the issue in
Brittany. The neighbourhood of Auray was a great
attraction both from personal devotion, and from
the opportunities it afforded of doing good among
the poor mobiles who flocked to the shrine of
Madame Sainte Anne, as they passed through Auray.
These hopes for Paris were quickly dashed, still
more so by the insane spirit which prevailed there
than by the military disasters of which every day
brought tidings. On Jannary 1, 1870, he writes to
the young seminarians of Montmorillon : " What
sort of year will this be which begins so mournfully
under the heel of the Prussians, and the far more
terrible hand of the godless Revolution ? Well, my
children, if we choose to make it so, it will be a
very good year in spite of all the demons without and
within ; for the good years are not those in which
we weep and suffer least, but those in which we
merit most, and love God most. If, during this
year, we sow all our minutes and hours, like so
many grains of wheat, in the ever fruitful soil of
the Kingdom of Heaven, then we shall have a very
good year in spite of the devil and his companions,
in spite of Bismarck and his savages, in spite of the
Revolution and its sectaries. To wish you a dif
148 GASTON DE SEGUR.

ferent sort of year than that, would, I think, be

wishing for what is impossible, for we are a very
long way from being converted. ... If we were
threatened with the Prussian scourge only, if there
were not these revolutionary atheists to deal with,
there would be good reason to hope for a speedy
deliverance, but Almighty God, in His terrible
mercy, is striking us, so to speak, with both hands,
and the hardest blows are yet to come."
These six months of war, the destruction of the
Empire, the horrors of the Commune, had gradually
drawn Mgr. de Segur's thoughts more and more
closely to the old traditions of the French monarchy ;
and, as usual, going straight to the point, he not
only published a pamphlet setting forth his senti
ments in the plaineBt manner, but as head of the
family, wrote to the Comte de Chambord, to give
his formal adhesion to his cause and the principle it
embodied. There were some who feared that his
influence as a priest might be weakened by this step;
but it was not so. As . his brother says, it was
evident to most people that there was no alternative
between the Republic and the old Monarchy, and
Mgr. de Segur's view was understood by every one.
The last months spent at Kermadio were full of
work and activity. The railway which passes close
to the chateau brought him an endless succession
of penitents, mobiles, volunteers, and Charrette's
Zouaves, who hastened to spend a few hours with
' the soldiers' friend," to be reconciled by him to
 LESSONS OF DETACHMENT. H9

God, and to receive strength and consolation for the

hard future. He visited Poitiers and Montmorillon,
nominally for a little rest, but the work went on
much as before. His secretary, the excellent Abbe
Diringer, was much taken up with a ministry which
must have been as fruitful of pain as. of consolation,
and most surely abounding in merit, full of grief as
he was over the loss of his unhappy birth-place
Alsace. Auray was at this time full of German
prisoners, many of them Catholics, and he was
indefatigable in hearing their confessions and giving
them all the consolations of the faith, but the suf
fering to one who was " French and Alsatian from
head to foot," was severe.
After the defeat of the Commune, Mgr. de Segur
went to Les Nouettes for the first Communion of
one of his nieces, but before doing so he spent some
weeks in Paris, where his presence was eagerly
desired by the many souls who had been deprived of
his ministry so long. It was a surprise and joy to
find his rooms in the Rue du Bac, above all the
chapel, "the place he loved most on earth," un
injured. He was prepared to find it a scene of
desolation, and had made the sacrifice in anticipation.
He used to say that times' of public calamity and
disturbance ought to detach us from many things.
" They make us see and feel that things good
and sweet and useful in themselves, things which
seemed almost necessary, were after all only pleasant,
and that we can do perfectly well without them,
150 GASTON DE SEGUR.

Amongst these is our pretty devotional chapel ; so,

too, our good little rules of life and fixed habits. . .
All these things were very good; but there is
something a great deal better, and that is full and
perfect submission to the holy will of God."
A still deeper joy was that of finding by far the
greater part of his dear Patronage children, appren
tices and workmen, in excellent dispositions ; of
course there were exceptions, but he had the
happiness of seeing those who had been drawn into
the madness and sin of the time hasten with
touching eagerness to pour out their hearts to their
friend and father and be reconciled by him to the
God they had offended. After a fortnight in Paris
he returned to Normandy to preach a retreat to his
nieces, who were making or renewing their First
Communion. His mother, most of his brothers and
sisters with their families were present ; it was a
family festival as well as a solemn Christian one.
And it was for the last time ; neither his mother nor
he ever saw the old home again.
On returning to Paris Mgr. de Segur's labours
were increased by two new ceuvres, to which he
devoted himself with all his usual enthusiasm and
perseverance. The first was that known as the
(Euvre de I'Alsace-Lorraine, in which his friendship
for the Abbe Diringer gave him an additional
interest. Whole families, on the Prussian annexa
tion of the two provinces, quitted houses, country
and occupations, rather than lose their French
 CEUVRE DE VALSACE-LORRAINE. 151

nationality. A committee, of relief, under the

presidency of the Comte d'Haussonville, to which
persons of every shade of opinion hastened to
subscribe, was at once formed, but from the fact
of its generality, it could not provide sufficiently for
the religious wants of these poor people, so deeply
and sincerely Catholic, whose faith was seriously
endangered by the want of German-speaking priests,
and whose morals were exposed to the contamina
ting influences of Parisian life. It was to supply
this want that the ceuvre in question was founded;
Mgr. de Segur continued to preside over it till his
death, and it was blessed beyond all expectation.
Special chaplains were appointed to districts in
habited by the emigrants, where catechisms, sermons,
and retreats, were soon in full work : schools and
orphanages were established) burses founded for
placing apprentices and for enabling the young clerics
expelled from the seminaries of Metz and Strasbourg
to continue their studies. In the orphanage of Sens
alone, admirably conducted by the Sisters of Provi
dence, a hundred and fifty children of the ceuvre
have in ten years been trained and established in
factories, houses of business, railways, post-offices,
and telegraph-companies, while the number of
families that have been relieved is beyond calcula
tion. Let us add, in conclusion, that the committee
have sent more than forty thousand francs to the
African dioceses for the religious necessities of the
colonists from Alsace and Lorraine.
15* GASTON DE SEGUR.

The other work which we have referred to was

that concerning military chaplains. This little
sketch has shown how truly Gaston de Segur
deserved his title of " the soldiers' friend," from
the days when he gave the first-fruits of his
ministry to the military prisons of Paris ; it will be
remembered how the evangelization of the French
army of occupation had been his favourite work in
Rome, and now he was ready to " spend and be
spent," in the cause so dear to his heart. He re
garded the religious and moral training of the
army, that is to say, of every young Frenchman in
turn, as the salvation of his country, the absolute
condition of her welfare. He had striven, before
the war broke out, for a regular legal organization
of the military chaplains ; his efforts had been
fruitless, but at that time the Church still enjoyed
comparative liberty of action, and there were in
every garrison town voluntary chaplains chosen by
the bishops and accepted by the commanding officers.
When the war broke out there was no official system
for the religious wants of the army, and the
Government was taken by surprise here as in all
other matters. It was left to private charity to sup
ply the deficiency, and from one end of France
to the other the work was nobly carried on. The
good that was done is not to be told ; a few
plain facts will tell their own tale. Father
Ambrose, a Capuchin, says that during the
war he visited three thousand sick and wounded,
 MILITARY CHAPLAINS. '53

confessed a thousand, anointed nearly three

hundred, and gave Holy Viaticum to about half
that number ; if these figures are multiplied by two
hundred and ten, the number of chaplains pro
vided or assisted by Mgr. de Segur's committee,
h will give an idea of the work done for God and
for souls.
In Paris and its environs, the results were,
perhaps, still more striking, as they were not helped
on by the powerful stimulus of imminent danger
and approaching death, as on the scene of war. At
Charenton, during a fortnight, the Abbe Courtade
calculated that at least twenty-five hundred men
made their confessions, and a Eudist Father, Pere
Feron, says that he and a colleague confessed whole
regiments passing through Paris, and in one church
alone nearly three thousand received Holy Com
munion. Neither were the dead forgotten ; and it
was in a great measure owing to the assistance of
Mgr. de Segur's committee that the well-known Pere
Joseph carried out his touching ceuvre for erecting
Christian monuments in all the German cemeteries
where French prisoners lie, and for founding Masses
for the repose of their souls.
But this was not all. Mgr. de Segur laboured
incessantly for the official establishment of the
military chaplains. The matter was beset with
difficulties ; several of the deputes, though good
Christians, and personally desirous of the success
of the project, were restrained by timidity and
»54 GASTON DE SEGUR.

human respect from committing themselves openly ;

and it may be safely said that the plan which was
laid before the National Assembly, and which
eventually passed into a law, owed its existence
to the frequent meetings in the Rue du Bac, at
which the most experienced of the voluntary
chaplains and the deputes who were heart and soul
with Mgr. de S6gur in the matter held consultation.
The law, when passed, left much to be desired ; still,
despite many shortcomings and omissions, it was a
great gain, and the strongest proof of the good, it
produced is the fact that one of the first steps of
the declared Republican Government was its sup
pression. To quote the Marquis de Segur : " It
' passed doing good,' like so many other Christian
works which share in the life of the Divine Master,
but it passed quickly, and Good Friday followed
Palm" Sunday. It was a sharp blow to Mgr. de
Segur, whose only consolation was in the hope of
seeing Easter follow Good Friday "
Soon after the passing of this important law God
sent His servant the great sorrow of his life, his
mother's death* He used to speak of his love for
her as " the one passion of his life," and certainly it
was the great sorrow of his life when he held her in
his arms in the chill dawn of that February morn
ing, and she gave up her spirit to God just as he
pronounced the Last Blessing. He went instantly
to his chapel and offered up the Holy Sacrifice for
her soul. While saying Mass his tears fell so fast
 A NEW CEUVRE. 155

and thick that the vestment he wore was soaked

through, tears doubly touching, as his brother says,
falling from sightless eyes.
He said the Requiem Mass on the day of her
funeral, the Bishop of Poitiers giving the abso
lutions : after the ceremony the latter said to him
the touching, often-quoted words, which lose so
much by translation* Mon ami, on devient vieux a
partir du jour ou Von n'a plus sa mere—" We begin to
be old men the day we lose our mother."
The Marquis says that his brother's health
visibly declined from the time of his mother's death :
not only was the strongest tie which bound him to
the earth broken, leaving a wound which never
healed, but the labours which had been before all
but incessant, were henceforth to know no inter
ruption. The fortnight's rest which he had taken
with his mother in the summer was abandoned, and
he threw himself, if possible, with more devotion
than ever into the multiplied works of his vast
apostolate. One of these, which has not yet been
mentioned, must be slightly sketched before con
cluding this chapter. At a congress of the directors
of the various Workmen's Associations it was re
solved to establish a Central Office which, without
exercising any sort of authority over the different
diocesan offices or ceuvres, should serve as a link by
means of which all should profit by the experience
of the rest, and also provide at a reduced rate, books,
articles of piety, games, and innumerable other
156 GASTON DE SEGUR.

things for the Patronages. Another important func

tion of the Central office was that of fixing and
arranging for the annual congresses held first in
one episcopal city, then in another, which the
Marquis de Segur well describes as " the assizes of
Catholic charity to the working classes." Mgr. de
Segur, who could refuse nothing which was asked
in the name of those so dear to him, accepted the
office of President. It was represented to him as
a sort of sinecure, his name being all that was
wanted, and without relying absolutely on this
statement, he was not prepared for the amount of
labour, the overwhelming anxiety, entailed by his
new duties. He presided for nearly eight years at
the fortnightly meetings, and on him, too, devolved
all the letters to the Pope, the Bishops, the
Superiors of the diocesan Seminaries, not to speak
of his articles in the Bulletin of the society, in which
appeared one of his most useful little works, The
young Christian workman. Last, but far from least,
was the trying office of asking alms, his • croix
d'argent, as he called it—the play upon the word is
untranslatable.
When attacked for the first time by congestion of
the brain, in 1879, he wrote a letter to excuse his
absence from the congress at Angers, from which
we give the following beautiful passage :

" Our Lord, Whose devoted servants we all of us

are, has sent me a little trial by which His will is made
 LETTER TO THE CONGRESS OF ANGERS. 157

very plain. And so, my dear friends, I cannot even

say that I am sorry not to be able to share your
labours, for we must love doing good works only
because it is the expression of our Divine Master's
will to us, and then, you know as well as I do, that,
if it is good to labour for Him, it is better still to
suffer for Him ; and never did the Son of God labour
so efficaciously for His Father's glory and for the
good of souls, as when He hung silent and motion
less on His Cross of anguish. That is the best place,
believe me, and I am sure you will give me a proof of
true Christian affection by thanking Jesus with me
land for me. Only ask of Him for your old friend and
servant sincere humility, constant sweetness, and the
best of all medicines, the height of all perfection,
patience. I will offer the Holy Sacrifice for you on
the day the congress opens, and also on the next day,
the 2nd of September, which is a great and sacred
anniversary of mine—it will be twenty-five years on
that day since I lost my sight, a grace for which I
thank our Lord twenty-five thousand times. I venture
to beg from you a special Communion of thanksgiving,
that I may keep this ' silver wedding ' of my blindness
more worthily with the Crucified and Merciful Jesus.
And now, my dear and kind friends, go on working in
a spirit of holiness for the true happiness and welfare
of our poor people. Let the wicked abuse us—the
disciple is not above His Master."

Two months after writing this letter, he resigned

the office of President.
 IX.

Last days.

Mgr. de Segur's health gradually declined from

the time of his mother's death, but his first attack
of congestion of the brain, his "first warning," as
he called it, was not till five years later. The
interval had brought him many trials, of which his
failing health, was, perhaps, the least ; the will of
God had been so long and so constantly his rule and
guide that he was as ready to be laid by " like a
worn out tool," as to work in the vineyard ; yet,
even so, the interruptions which broke in now so
often upon his apostolate, the necessity of restricting
his labours and of taking rest must have been a
cross. These five years, too, were marked by the
deaths of many most dear to him. The charity of
a Roman prelate, who had obtained his leave to pay
the expenses of his journey to Rome and his stay
there, procured him the consolation of standing by
the death-bed of one of these, the grand old soldier
Mgr. Bastide, who had been struck down by para
lysis of the brain. He recognized the " Gaston "
whom he had loved so well, and thanked God for
the joy of seeing him. We may well believe that
 FRIENDSHIP WITH GOUNOD.

he was allowed to receive the visit of another

beloved friend, who had died some months before,
and who seemed to have been sent to welcome him
to Paradise. Just before he breathed his last, Mgr.
Bastide suddenly regained the power of speech, his
face lighted up, and he cried out two or three times
in a strong voice, " Come, M6rode, come ! " Three
years later Mgr. de Segur paid his last visit to
Rome, to assist at the funeral of him who was to
him Pope, father, friend, and guide. The Marquis,
at this point of his biography, dwells at some length
on the friendships of his brother, always an inter
esting page in the lives of the great and good, but
over which we must not linger long. Three of his
most intimate lay friends were Louis Veuillot,
Auguste Nicolas, and Gounod. A few words may
be given to the last of the trio. Mgr. de Segur first
met him at Rome ; in Paris they soon became great
friends. He delighted in Gounod's varied gifts, and
used to say that besides being a great musician, the
first lyrical composer of his time, a poet and a
brilliant talker, he was " almost a theologian."
Gounod opened his whole heart to his blind friend,
his life had no secrets from him, sometimes he
called him "father," sometimes "Gaston;" wher
ever they went, they talked long and intimately, and
the conversation, however it began, was sure to get
to Rome by some way or other. Even in the
closing days of Mgr. de Segur's life, when his soul
was sometimes overshadowed by his bodily sufferings,
i6o GASTON DE SEGUR.

Gounod was always able to brighten him up, and,

as the Marquis says, to " call forth the hearty laugh
of an innocent soul, that touching joyous laugh of
children and of priests." This holy and beautiful
friendship was an inspiration under the influence of
which some of Gounod's loveliest cantiques were
composed, as well as " Polyeucte " and the " Re
demption." A very few months before Mgr. de
Segur's death, he begged him to come once more to
dine en famille with him, his wife and his children.
After dinner he took him into his study, which is
quite a sanctuary, having at one end a splendid
organ, and, for its chief ornament a striking head
of our Lord by Franceschi. Here he played and
sang to him some of the finest passages of that
religious work (the " Redemption," the Words of
which (also Gounod's) are as full of inspiration as
the music, and Mgr. de Segur sat and listened, as it
were, to the echoes of the heavenly strains he was
soon to hear in Paradise."
Next to the friendship of Pius the Ninth, the
greatest honour and one of the greatest joys of
Mgr. de Segur's life was the strong and faithful
attachment of the illustrious Bishop of Poitiers,
whose death preceded his own by a year. It was
a great blow to him, and, notwithstanding his
broken health, he undertook the journey to Poitiers
to assist at the funeral of his friend, the " Hilary of
the nineteenth century," as Mgr. Pie has been aptly
named.
 THE FIRST WARNING. 161

The first attack of congestion of the brain was

not severe in itself, but very serious as regards the
future, and he was ordered entire rest in the country ;
he went at once to his sister's chateau in Brittany
to spend the next two or three months " like a
Catholic oyster," as he said, hoping at the end of
that time to begin work again gradually ; but hence*
forth his whole life was an immediate preparation
for death. Like St. Francis of Sales he was
continually " on the alert," but far from losing any
of his cheerfulness in consequence, his gentle
constant gaiety seemed only to brighten as the
"perfect day" drew near. He wrote to a religious
of the Assumption, who was his spiritual daughter :
" It is a little warning from the doorkeeper of
Paradise, St. Peter, to get my packing done. Now
I expect you to help me in this, like a true Sister
of Charity : women, especially Sisters, understand
the business better than men do. So I leave it to
you, my dear Sister, and to your holy companions."
He writes to Dom Grea from Kermadio : " Here we
are, the Abbe Diringer and I, in absolute solitude,
on the land of Sainte-Anne-d'Auray, where it is so
quiet that you can hear the flies' wings ; and here
we mean, please God, to remain till October, without
moving, or seeing anybody, or making any visits
except to the Blessed Sacrament, in a pretty new
Breton church, twenty minutes off, where there is
the best cure in the world and an excellent vicaire.
On the way there, very near to us, rests my dear
 GASTON DE SEGUR.

mother, to whom we also pay a visit as we go or

return. I hope to continue, as I have begun, to say
Mass in a little impromptu chapel. We only mean
to do just enough work to prevent our feeling dull,
and we shall live a good deal in the open air, trying,
too, to live very faithfully and calmly, from day to
day, from hour to hour, as our Lord bids us do."
The quiet life in Brittany had good results, the
brain was calm, the speech much clearer; and he
thus announces the improvement and his hopes of
doing a little work, in one of his letters ; " I am
much better ; and when I begin, very gradually, to
do some work again for souls, I shall soon see
whether our dear Lord and Master means to put
me on one side, like an old soldier whose time of
service is up, or whether, in His goodness, He still
intends to make use of me to sweep consciences, or
to do washing, rough or fine, or to mend broken
pots, or to act as gardener or servant of some sort,
no matter what I am called or what my wages are."
Preaching was impossible, on account of his
speech being still, though not seriously, affected :
he heard confessions, as usual, except in the
evenings, without appearing to suffer ; and in the
February of 1880, he celebrated two marriages in
his family. So the months went on, till a second
seizure occurred just after the Assumption. It was
not more severe than the first, but it was another
stage of the last journey. His manner of life
continued as before, and he was even able to work
 THE LAST MASS. 163

a little every day at a book on the most striking

miracles at Lourdes, in which he was intensely
interested, his last tribute of devotion to the
Immaculate Mother of God, On the 18th of
December, he writes to the religious of whom we
have just spoken : " This morning, my dear Sister,
I celebrated the thirty-third anniversary of my first
Mass, and I think I did so with a deeper sense of
happiness than ever. And yet, as one grows old,
and feels more and more the burden of age and
infirmity, devotional feelings droop and become slow
and difficult. It is a condition to which I was
a stranger till I had my little attack last year, and
I find it very dreary and depressing. You roust beg
our dear Lord to enable me to profit by this share
in the grace of the beginning of His Agony ; " He
began to grow sorrowful and to be sad,"
It was on Good Friday, the 15th of April, his
sixty-second birthday, that Mgr. de Segur had a
third, and more serious attack. With a submission
so prompt, that it seemed to cost him nothing, he
made the sacrifice of his labours for the close of
Holy Week, and soon after Easter he left Paris for
his second brother's house, at Mery, After a short
stay he returned to the Rue du Bac ; he had invited
his little incurables to come to Mass in his chapel,
and on May 28, 1881, it was full of "the poor and
the feeble and the blind and the lame ; " there were
paralyzed children who had to be laid before the
altar, and it was in the midst of these sufferers, so
l64 GASTON DE SEGUR.

dear to the Sacred Heart and to his own, that this

father of the poor said his last Mass. He could
hardly get through it ; it was with great difficulty
that he genuflected, and he often leant upon the
altar to support himself in a standing posture, yet
after his thanksgiving he went into the dining-room
where a little feast was prepared for the children,
and helped his secretary and Methol to wait on
them. Never had he been more fatherly or more
bright and cheerful, and when he retired to rest he
appeared much as usual, but before morning he was
taken seriously ill. His doctor insisted on his being
removed from the little cell which was his sleeping-
chamber, and from the bed which the poorest patient
in a hospital would have refused. It was, in fact,
one small hard mattrass laid on the top of a rough
chest. After some search, an old iron bedstead was
discovered in the loft, this was moved into the salon
and covered with a couple of borrowed mattrasses,
and on it he passed the ten days he had to spend
on earth. There were many alternations of hope
and fear before the former was quite abandoned.
There was continued dulness and torpor of the
brain unless he was spoken to, and then he always
replied promptly and with his usual gracious sweet
ness. Sometimes, for hours together, he imagined
himself in the confessional, and the watcher by his
side would see his hand raised continually to make
the sign of the Cross, and hear the broken voice
whisper: "Say three Hail Marys for your penance."
 LEAVETAKINGS. 165

Once he thought he was at Lourdes, and could

hardly believe it was not so ; he said to his brother
in the morning : " Well, they say that I have not
really been at Lourdes just now, so I must believe
them, but it is difficult to think it was fancy."
Everywhere, not in France only, but throughout
the Catholic world, prayers, Masses and Com
munions were offered for his cure. For some days,
only his nearest relatives were admitted to his
room ; and, as at his mother's death, all his brothers
and sisters, except one who was on a sick bed, were
in Paris. On the feast of Pentecost, the oppression
of' his chest increased so much that, though he was
not suffering pain, it was thought well to anoint
him. He consented joyfully, making all the res
ponses himself, and repeating, again and again
afterwards, " How beautiful it all is ! how good
it is ! "
And now that those who loved him best saw
clearly that it was not God's will to keep him longer
with them, they felt that this deathbed of an apostle
must not be regarded as an ordinary one, his count
less friends and penitents must not be deprived of
the last lesson he would give, the lesson of a
Christian death. First, those nearest and dearest
to him of the number were admitted ; then came a
succession of priests, the Cardinal Archbishop and
his coadjutor came to thank him for his labours in
the diocese and to give him their blessing. One of
his old patronage children, the young Abbe Fossin,
 GASTON DE SEGUR.

who came from Poitiers to take leave of him, had

the happiness of saying Mass in the chapel and of
giving the Bread of Life to his dying Father, and
so the apostle of the Paris boys and of the young
seminarians received the last Viaticum at the hands
of one whom he had trained for the priesthood.
Then, by a silent and common consent, the doors of
his house were opened to all who desired to come.
At one time, when the last moment was thought
to be imminent and the prayers for the dying were
being recited, he lay so calm and motionless that
all thought that he was gone when the last
"Amen" was spoken; but just then he lifted "up
his hands, and in a clear thrilling voice which none
who heard it ever forgot, spoke one word, Alleluia!
then, after " that cry of spiritual gladness which
was the expression of his whole life," as his brother
well says, he relapsed into silence and remained
motionless as before. From that moment the room
was never empty ; and the few words he said to
each in turn would show how perfectly he knew
them.
Among these last visits was that of the Abbe
Chaumont, one of his most beloved spiritual chil
dren, whose direction he esteemed so highly that
he had confided to him the care of his mother's soul.
On taking leave of him Mgr. de Segur gave him a
very precious souvenir, the old wooden prie-dieu at
which his penitents had knelt for so many years.
Late in the evening his old secretary and Roman
 M. INGIGLIARD1.

convert, the Abbe Klingenhoffen, arrived from Poi

tiers for a few last words and the blessing which
was given in a voice of thrilling tenderness. Almost
his last visitor was M. Le Rebours, the excellent
cure of the Madeleine, the companion of his early
years and his life-long friend. Their parting was
a most beautiful and Christian one ; the Abbe
bending over his - dying friend, spoke to him in
the strong words of faith of his happiness in being
so near Heaven, and begged him to pray for him
there that, above all things, the grace of purity of
intention might be his. Very clearly and distinctly
Mgr. de Segur replied : "Ah yes—purity of intention,
that is everything ! "
Nothing disturbed or distressed him; self-forgetful,
and full of charity to the last, he allowed his face
or hands to be kissed with an angelic smile, making
the sign of the Cross over each in turn till his
failing hand refused the office. Then M. Diringer
begged him to rest, but he answered: " No, no, I
will go on blessing them till there is an end of me"
—Jusqu'a ma complete demolition. One of the joys of
this last day was the blessing of the Holy Father,
which he received twice ; from the Nuncio and from
Cardinal Chigi.
Night came, and he was alone with those who
were to watch by him ; among these was a young
doctor, M. Ingigliardi, who had a singular and
touching devotion to the " blind saint. " He was
bending over him, moistening his lips, and whisper
 GASTON DE SEGUR.

ing the most affectionate words in his ear, when

suddenly he was assailed by a strange temptation
against the faith: "What," he asked himself, "if
this holy priest, after a life spent in the service of
God, should not be rewarded after death, what if
instead of the joys of heaven, his lot should be
annihilation ? " Tortured by this involuntary doubt,
he said in his heart only : " O Monseigneur, will you
not come, after your death, to tell us that there is a
Heaven and that you are there ? " The silent
question was answered—they were his last words—
" Believe, my son. O my child, believe ! " At the
time, no one had the key to these words but he to
whom they were addressed, and to him they have
been the strength and consolation of his life.
As dawn broke on the morning of June 9, 1881,
Gaston de Segur drew his last breath. The shadows
which had so long veiled the face of the earth from
his eyes had passed away for ever in the light of
the everlasting day, in which they opened to see the
face of the Master.
The Abb6 Diringer, the faithful Methol and his
wife and children remained with the Segur family
through the night beside all that was earthly of
their saintly brother, friend and master.
His devoted medical attendant, Dr. Ingigliardi,
stood for three hours after closing his eyes, with one
hand on the forehead, the other under the chin of
his dead friend and father, till the features had
become rigid in death, praying silently all the time,
 THE DEATH-CHAMBER. 169

with his eyes fixed on the face he so loved and

venerated. The only thing he asked for in return
for his services was some linen cloths which had
been applied to Mgr. de Segur's leg which was
painfully inflamed in his last illness, " they are
relics," he said, "which will cure some of my
patients."
While this devoted friend was thus watching by
the body, another, the Abb6 Diringer, was offering
the Holy Sacrifice for the soul, in the chapel where
he whom they mourned had so often offered the
same spotless Victim, where he had spent so many
hours of intercession and reparation. One can
well understand the feeling of mingled sorrow and
thanksgiving with which, as his brother tells us,
that Mass was heard by all present, and how they
felt that the souls of his mother and sister were
even then welcoming him to that glorious Eternity
where assuredly the works of him who had so
blessedly "died in the Lord" had followed him.
During the four days that elapsed before the
body of Mgr. de S6gur was taken to the church of
St. Thomas d'Aquin, from dawn to nightfall the
Rue du Bac was blocked by carriages and foot-
passengers, and the room where he lay was full of
visitors who after praying by the corpse, passed
into the chapel and so out of the* house. All was
orderly and solemn ; even those who came from
mere curiosity left the presence of the dead with
very different feelings; but they were few indeed.
 GASTON £>E SEGUR.

and the crowds who pressed around the little iron

bedstead to kiss the feet, bare, like those of the
glorioso poverello to whose Third Order he belonged,
were true mourners.
On the morning of the 13th, Masses went on in
the chapel without interruption till the coffin was
taken away ; then the last Host was consumed and
the tabernacle remained empty ; in the words of
the Marquis, " God and His faithful servant left the
house in which they had dwelt for twenty-five years,
at the same moment." The funeral procession was,
as Mgr. de S6gur had enjoined, without all show or
pomp of any kind ; but the love and reverence of
the people of Paris made it a solemn triumph, as
it passed through dense crowds, bareheaded and
silent, or only speaking in whispers, as in a church.
And what a cortege it was ! there seemed no end to
the long lines of working men, apprentices and poor
women and children. The church was densely
crowded ; the Requiem was a simple Low Mass—
this, too, by his own desire-—but never had more
touching music been heard, for Gounod had begged
to play the organ during the ceremony, and the
exquisite subdued strains which filled the church
seemed the language of mingled sorrow, hope
and joy.
On the 16th the coffin was taken to Brittany, to
its last resting-place in the churchyard of Pluneret,
near Sainte-Anne-d'Auray. Mgr. de S6gur had
chosen it because " it is one of the places where the
 THE CHURCHYARD OF PLUNERET. 171

dead are most prayed for," and also because his

mother lay there. It had been a delight to him
to plant and adorn the corner which he chose
for the family burying-ground. This is described as
singularly bright as well as devotional ; a light
railing encloses a space large enough for twelve
graves, in the middle is a statue of our Lady of
Lourdes, on her right St. Francis of Assisi, on her
left St. Francis of Sales. There, by his mother's
side, under a simple slab and cross of the blue
granite of the country, the body of Gaston de Segur
waits for the morning of the Resurrection. On the
cross are these words, "Jesus my Life and my
Love," and on the stone—

Ave Maria, Gratia Plena—Immaculata Deipara.

Here rests, in the peace of our Lord Jesus Christ,
Louis Gaston de Segur, priest, prelate of the Holy
Roman Church, Episcopal-canon of the Chapter of
Saint-Denys ; in the Third Order of St. Francis
Brother Francis-Mary of the Blessed Sacrament, born
in Paris, April 15, 1820; died in Paris, June 9, 1881.
In Pace—Jesus Deus, Propitius Esto Mihi Peccatori.

And so, as his brother says, " the last word he

wrote of himself is the word sinner, and the last
lesson which he teaches from the grave is
humility."
The Marquis de Segur, in the spirit of submission
and reserve which stamps every word of his in
touching on matters as to which the Church has
 GASTON DE SEGUR.

not pronounced, alludes in a very few words to

the " graces and cures obtained after special invo
cation and ascribed to the intercession of the ' blind
saint,' which have from time to time rejoiced the
hearts of his family and friends ; " but he cannot
refuse himself the pleasure of giving the following
account sent to him by one of the pious Bretons of
Pluneret.
The curiosity of strangers is excited by seeing little
bags filled with earth hanging to the cross on Mgr. de
Segur's grave, and they ask what this means. They
are hung there out of gratitude. In this part of Mor-
bihan the workmen and field-labourers are very subject
to fever, and they have the pious custom of praying
for a cure through the intercession of persons who
have led a very holy life. What they do is to take
some of the blessed earth from the grave, and fill with
it a little bag which they wear about them : then when
the fever is gone, the bag is placed on the grave of the
person invoked. Already the sepulchre of him whom
Christian France and the Church mourn for is glorious
. . . Peasants and great ladies, workmen and persons
of high rank, young men of the world and priests,
sometimes from a great distance, come in succession,
not, as the saintly prelate begged in his humility, to
pray for his soul, but to implore his intercession with
God.

We conclude these short notices of a beautiful

and saintly life, as his biographer concludes the
memoir from which they are taken, by the last will
 LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT.

and testament, written at Mgr. de Segur's dictation

a few months before his death.

This is the expression of my last wishes. In the

Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy
Ghost ; in the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
I die, as I have lived, in the faith of the Holy,
Catholic, Apostolic, Roman Church, and in absolute
submission to the Holy Apostolic See and all its deci
sions, in the love of the most Holy Sacrament of the
Altar and of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and with filial
affection to the Blessed and Immaculate Virgin Mary
and her holy mother St. Anne.
I die in the hope of the Divine mercy and under the
special protection of my dear patrons, the Archangels
St. Michael and St. Gabriel, SS. Peter and Paul,
SS. Joseph and John the Evangelist, SS. Francis of
Assisi, Francis of Sales, and Louis.
I die hoping to rejoin in the presence of God all
whom I have loved and who have loved me on earth,
especially my beloved mother and father, my sister
Jane Frances, and my true father, the great and saintly
Pope Pius the Ninth.
If, in any of my writings the least thing should be
found opposed to the teaching, present or future, of
the Holy See, I retract and condemn it with my whole
heart. I wish to be buried in the habit of the Third
Order of St. Francis of Assisi, barefoot, in token of
poverty, with the blue scapular of the Immaculate
Conception and that of the Sacred Heart ; in my
purple cassock, as a mark of my dependence on the
«74 GASTON DE SEGUR.

Pope and the Roman Church ; in an alb and white

chasuble, in token of my deep love for the Blessed
Sacrament and for our Lady, and of my firm faith in
the Resurrection. I wish the holy Gospels, the crucifix
blessed and indulgenced by Pius the Ninth, and my
rosary to be laid on my breast.
My heart is to be embalmed and then laid before the
Blessed Sacrament in the Visitation Convent where
my sister Sabine had the happiness of living and
dying, and where my mother's heart also lies : I beg
the dear and good sisters of the Visitation to allow my
poor heart to be placed amongst them, in perpetual
adoration before the Blessed Sacrament, and that it
may have a share in all the prayers and Communions
of the Community. On the leaden case containing
my heart are to be engraved these words : " Jesus, my
God, I love Thee and adore Thee with all my heart,
in the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar."
I beg there may be no show or useless expense at
my funeral. Wherever I die, I desire that there may
be a simple Low Mass, with twelve candles round my
coffin, six on each side and a thirteenth at the head as
the rubric directs. . . .
I bless with the deepest fatherly affection all my
spiritual children and all the Communities in which
I have had the happiness of regularly exercising my
ministerial office, especially the Seminaries of Mont-
morillon, Seez, Ste-Anne-d'Auray, and the little
Congregation of Saint-Sulpice. ■
For the last time and with great affection I bless the
College Stanislas and the Association of apprentices
 LAST WISHES. *75

of Saint-Thomas-d'Aquin and all the children and

young men whom I have directed and who are so dear
to me, and in parting from them for a time, I urge
upon them three things, the observance of which will
be for their welfare and happiness: I. To cherish
throughout their lives a real love for the authority of
the Holy Father: 3. a great practical love for the
Blessed Sacrament and for Holy Communion : 3. a
tender and filial affection to the Queen of Purity, Our
Blessed Lady. I beg them always to remember their
poor father in their prayers and Communions, and of
those who have the happiness of being priests I ask a
perpetual memento at the Nobis quoque peccatoribus.
I particularly bless, throughout their lives, all the
members of our family, all my nephews and nieces and
their children, I conjure them all never to forsake the
service of God, to lead Christian lives, and always and
in all things to be humbly submissive to the doctrine,
the orders and the cause of the Vicar of Jesus Christ.
I hope that the grace of a priestly and a religious
vocation, having once entered our family, may never
be withdrawn from it, but that, to the end, it may
enjoy the distinguished honour and the exceeding
happiness of giving priests and religious to Our Lord
and His Church. I commend myself with great confi
dence to the prayers of all the good and faithful Asso
ciates of Saint vFrancis of Sales, and I beg of them,
after my death, to labour with redoubled zeal and
devotion for the interests of the Faith and extension of
the holy work. St. Francis of Sales will repay a
hundredfold all that they may do for his Association.
176 GASTON DE SEGUR.

I make the same request to all my brothers and

sisters of the Third Order of St. Francis, that they
may be its worthy members and true apostles.
I humbly beg pardon of our Lord and of all whom
I may have disedified or scandalized in my miserable
life, for all the evil I have done in any possible way ;
and I thank, with affectionate gratitude, all those
who have done me good, corporal or spiritual, recom
mending my poor soul to their prayers.
I forgive, with my whole heart and for the love of
Our Lord Jesus Christ, every one who may have
injured me in the course of my life, or caused me any
trouble, small or great. I hope that God will, in His
goodness, vouchsafe to pardon all the calumnies which
may have been directed against me.
And now, blessing my God for His countless mercies
and graces, for my holy vocation, for my blindness, for
the good He has enabled me to do, and for the evil He
has taught me to avoid ; blessing all whom I love, and
in peace with all the world, I give up my soul into the
Hands of my Saviour ; I place it in His Sacred and
Adorable Heart, and I desire to breathe my last breath
and to commit my Eternity to the blessed and Immac
ulate Virgin, Mother of grace and Queen of Heaven.
May my dear Father, Saint Francis, and my dear
patron, friend and protector, Saint Francis of Sales
obtain for me the grace of a good death, and bring me
themselves into the Presence of Our Lord Jesus Christ.
The second of September 1880, the twenty-sixth anni
versary of the most blessed day on which I became blind.
ffa LOUIS GASTON DE SEGUR.