respect me, and I might thus on certain occasions become the protector
of my family. My mother wept much. Just at this period my eldest
brother (since a general and killed at Leipzig) had entered the army
as a private soldier, driven from his home for the same reasons that
made me wish to be a priest. I showed my mother that her best means of
protection would be to marry my sister, as soon as she was old enough,
to some man of strong character, and to look for help to this new
family. Under pretence of avoiding the conscription without costing my
father a penny to buy me off, I entered the seminary of Saint-Sulpice
at the age of nineteen. Within those celebrated old buildings I found
a peace and happiness that were troubled only by the thought of my
mother and my sister's sufferings. Their domestic misery, no doubt,
went on increasing; for whenever they saw me they sought to strengthen
my resolution. Perhaps I had been initiated into the secrets of
charity, such as our great Saint Paul defines it, by my own trials. At
any rate, I longed to stanch the wounds of the poor in some forgotten
corner of the earth, and to prove by my example, if God would deign to
bless my efforts, that the Catholic religion, judged by its actions
for humanity, is the only true, the only beneficent and noble
civilizing force. During the last days of my diaconate, grace, no
doubt, enlightened me. I have fully forgiven my father, regarding him
as the instrument of my destiny. My mother, though I wrote her a long
and tender letter, explaining all things and proving to her that the
finger of God was guiding me, my poor mother wept many tears as she
saw my hair cut off by the scissors of the Church. She knew herself
how many pleasures I renounced, but she did not know the secret
glories to which I aspired. Women are so tender! After I once belonged
to God I felt a boundless peace; I felt no needs, no vanities, none of
those cares which trouble men so much. I knew that Providence would
take care of me as a thing of its own. I entered a world from which