The Secret of the Curé de Ars Compiled, Partially Rewritten, and Arranged by Pauly Fongemie SOURCES USED: Secrets of the Saints, Henri Ghéon, 1944; From the Housetops Magazine, Vol. XXIV, No. 3, Serial No. 53; The Life of the Curé de Ars, Abbé Alfred Monnin, 1861; and Eucharistic Meditations, Curé de Ars, Eccles. Appr. 1923 OVERVIEW OF THE SEMINARY AND ORDINATION Much has been made of the fact that the Curé de Ars struggled with his schooling and was considered less than a stellar student in the seminary. Sometimes this is used to justify the ordination of unfit modern seminarians. Nothing could be more invalid as we shall soon learn below. It is overlooked or just plain unknown that why the future priest had so much difficulty was not that he did not apply himself, was stupid or slow, but because he was not proficient in Latin, other than the Latin required to administer the Sacraments; the texts were mostly in Latin, a strict requirement that is mainly retained in traditional seminaries today. The Saint excelled at prayer and the school of Heavenly wisdom that is taught in devotion to Our Lady and her rosary, as we have just seen. Here is a little background which reveals what actually happened. I cite again the biographer Monnin: AT length the revolution had worn itself out; and France, weary of herself, had taken shelter under the strong hand of Napoleon. One of his first acts was to restore a measure of liberty to the Church. But the deep wounds which had been inflicted on her were beyond the power of soldier or statesman to heal. Her churches were re-opened, and her altars raised again; but her faithful priests had perished on the guillotine, or pined away in exile, and who was to minister in their stead? The town of Ecully was especially happy in receiving for its pastor the Abbé Balley, one of the confessors for the faith, who during the Reign of Terror had often ministered, at the peril of his life, to the spiritual wants of its pious inhabitants. His first care, on taking possession of his cure in February, 1803, was to collect around him the boys and youths of his flock; and it was not long before an intimate relation was established between the new Curé and the saintly boy of Dardilly. The sight of the holy priest at the altar made a great impression upon Jean-Marie. He longed to see and speak with him; and the first effect of their conversations together was to rekindle a desire which had long lain dormant in his heart,---to devote himself, soul and body, to the service of the suffering Church of Jesus Christ. As a child this had been an instinct, at eighteen it was a vocation. "If I were ever a priest," he would say, "I would win many souls to God." He had opened his heart to his parents on the subject just after his first Communion; but under the dark cloud which then hung over the Church in France, they shrank from giving their consent. Jean-Marie took the course which he afterwards recommended to so many others. He committed his vocation to God in obedience and prayer, until it should please Him to remove the obstacles which then stood in the way of its accomplishment. The Concordat which followed the battle of Marengo in 1801, made so great a change in the aspect of ecclesiastical affairs, that he felt the time was come to laY his long-cherished hope before the good Curé of Ecully, and ask his counsel and aid for its fulfillment. M. Balley gave him the most decided encouragement, and sent him away with a promise to do every thing in his power to assist him. His parents no longer made any opposition to the wishes of their son, who now took up his abode with his mother's relations at Ecully to be near his friend and patron. So much was he beloved at Dardilly, that all the neighbours wished to share in the expense of his education. A pious widow begged and obtained the favour of washing his clothes, and thought herself well repaid by the opportunity thus afforded of paying him an occasional visit. The little farm of Point-du-jour, which was Jean-Marie's home for two years, was, no less than his father's house, sheltered from all worldly and evil influences, and here also his piety continued to increase in proportion to his faithful correspondence with Divine grace.   But here a new and severe trial came upon him. He was free to devote himself to the life which had long been the choice of his heart; every outward obstacle was removed, but now his path was crossed by one which seemed insurmountable. His education had been utterly neglected. He knew nothing but the science of the Saints. At an age when other youths have finished their classical studies, he was but beginning Latin; and what was more depressing still, he had no natural talents to enable him to cope with these disadvantages. His kind instructor did his best to encourage him, and to give him a little confidence in himself; but at times the poor boy was fairly disheartened. On one of these occasions he asked leave to go home and see his parents. M. Bailey gently refused. "What good would that do you?" said he kindly. "Your parents would only think that your labours and their sacrifices had been all in vain, and be too glad of the opportunity to keep you at home; and then farewell to all our projects, farewell to the priesthood and the salvation of souls." The years went peaceable by at Point-du-jour till a new blow fell---the mandatory conscription. In the autumn of 1809 his name was drawn. He had entered his name as an exception because he was studying for priesthood, but somehow it had never been entered unknown to him. He was ordered to join the troops at Bayonne and his family became grief-stricken. Matthieu Vianney was unsuccessful in his attempt to provide a substitute for his son. It was at this time that his health declined and instead of being placed at Bayonne the officials had to put him in the hospital at Lyon [Lyons]. There he spoke of the holy will of God, upon all his attention was directed. After two two weeks he was considered well enough to travel, but suddenly a new fever seized him and this time he was hospitalized at Roanne for another six weeks. Again, the words of Abbé Alfred Monnin:  ... He rapidly regained his strength, and was appointed to make one of a detachment then forming at Roanne to join the army in Spain. The devoted soldier of Christ was on the point of being forced to enlist in the most murderous and manifestly unjust of all the wars in which the headlong ambition of Napoleon engaged him. But He Who was soon, by the feeble breath of His Vicar, to cause the weapons to fall from the frozen hands of his invincible legions, was at no loss to deliver from the eagle's talons the shepherd-boy, who was to be His Own chosen champion against the army of Lucifer. The whole chain of providential events by which this deliverance was brought to pass is remarkable ... on the day fixed for the departure of his column, he went to pray in a church. He forgot the time, and let the hour pass by at which he was to present himself at the office. When he appeared, he was loaded with invectives and reproaches by the recruiting officer, who threatened to send him in chains from brigade to brigade, till he should reach Bayonne. Some more kindly spirits interposed on his behalf. "What is the use," said they, "of using force? The poor boy has no idea of deserting, or he would not have come to present himself." This reasoning prevailed; and he set out upon his journey, haying no thought of deserting, but with a sort of conviction on his mind that he should not join his corps. He went on his way with a heavy heart and a sad countenance; his longing desire for the priesthood and his intense repugnance to every other career, especially that of arms, strengthening with every step he took. He remembered how, in his peaceful home, he used to pity the poor young men whom he had seen forced from their firesides by the pitiless conscription; he thought with shuddering horror of the deserters he had seen dragged along in chains by the soldiers, answering by frightful curses the cruelty of their guards. Was his life to be spent among such as these? To drive away these dark thoughts, he took out his rosary, and turned to the blessed Mother of God,---his never-failing refuge in distress. At that very moment a stranger accosted him in a tone of great kindness, asking whither he was going, and why he seemed so sad. Jean-Marie told his story. The young man bade him follow him, assuring him that he had nothing to fear, and at the same time took up his knapsack to carry, which was very heavy, and which, being still weak from his late illness, he could scarcely drag along. Jean-Marie followed his guide without raising any objection, perfectly ignorant as to his destination, but resigned to anything that might befall him, except, as he afterwards said, falling into the hands of the gens d'armes. They traveled thus all day long through woods and by mountain tracts, avoiding as much as possible high roads or frequented paths. Jean-Marie was sinking with fatigue; but the kind words and looks of his companion seemed to give him strength and courage. At ten o'clock at night they halted for the first time at the door of a lonely house. The stranger knocked; a voice answered from within, and a man and woman appeared at the door, having risen from their beds to ascertain who was asking their hospitality at that hour of the night. The stranger exchanged a few rapid words with them in a low voice; and from that day forward M. Vianney never either saw or heard of him, nor did he ever, according to the testimony of those most intimate with him, discover who he was. Can we help here calling to mind the Angelic companion of the young Tobias? Whether, however, this remarkable deliverance of the servant of God was effected by human or angelic agency, we cannot fail to recognize in it the loving providence of Him Who "guides the just by right paths, and keeps him in all his ways." In 1810, his younger brother filled his place in the conscription and as it is often the way with God and His providence, the same officer who had been so harsh with the Saint, now accepted the exchange. Two years later he entered at last the seminary [Monnin book]:  ... the testimony of his contemporaries in the seminary of Lyons, was that the inferiority of M. Vianney's attainments has been much exaggerated. One of them tells us, indeed, that "whenever M. Vianney was questioned, either upon doctrines or morals, it was always in French, because he could not speak Latin; but his answers, though short, were always correct and exact." Another writes thus: "He knew little of Latin, having begun his studies late, and gone through them very rapidly; but he knew quite enough to understand the approved authors in philosophy and theology. "To describe him as an ignorant person is a great mistake." It was a mistake, however, shared and fostered by his own singular humility. ...His self-distrust was the occasion of many precious acts of interior humility; it was his delight to unite himself to the humiliations of his Divine Master, as he poured forth his soul before Him in the Blessed Sacrament, and thanked Him with holy David that He had made him "the laughing stock of those that were round about him." Meanwhile the time for his ordination drew near. M. Balley's was consulted on the ordination of the inept scholar: he seemed to reflect for a moment, and then said, "Is this young Vianney pious? Does he say his rosary well? Is he devout to the Blessed Virgin?" "He is a model of piety," replied all the directors with one voice. "Very well," answered the Vicar-General, "I will receive him. Divine grace will do the rest." He was ordained sub-deacon at Lyons by the Bishop of Grenoble, in the absence of the Cardinal-Archbishop. One who was at his side during the ordination observed that, when he arose after the prostration, his countenance shone with holy joy ... M. Vianney was ordained priest August 9, 1815. It is not known where he said his first Mass, but it is thought it was at Ecully. He served there assisting his beloved mentor, Balley for two years. The he was appointed Curé de Ars. Ars is northwest of Lyon. THE CONVERSION OF A VILLAGE When he arrived at his parish from an isolated road little used except by farmhands today, our Saint fell on his knees in prayer. The village was very small, in all no more than a thousand souls which supposedly gave him some comfort in his humility. Without any boastful inclinations he said shortly: "This parish will not be able to hold all those who later will come to it." Only a Saint could have uttered such words without sinning by pride. An old woman came with him along with a cart holding  some meager furniture. When he entered the church he noted its humble setting with satisfaction, although he thought the dilapidated state was shameful. The roof was cracked and the woodwork rotting, unworthy of God. Incongrulously the presbytery or lodging for the priest was luxury itself; he determined to return the items to the kind lady at the château who had lent them to the parish. He would use the furniture he had brought with him, like the peasant he was and intended to remain. His next order of business was discoveing the most importnat thing. When he received his appointment he was informed that the parishioners had very little love for God. Of course, he realized that the revolution and its aftermath had done much to diminish the Christian spirit. For a time the people had simply forgotten how to believe in anything at all. After the Concordat there was a glimmer of faith and the women did attend Mass regularly.  But human respect had taken its toll. New priests had managed to save something of the forms of the faith vut without much depth. In addition, the courseness of manners which comes with social disorder had not spared this forgotten corner of France either. The people tended to drink to excess; they were given to oversleeping and dancing at any excuse, and swore without one. The farmers brought in their hay on Sundays. Ignorance about duty and right and wrong abounded M. Vianney soon addressedthese evils in no uncertain terms, although he was not unduly harsh. To ciate from Henri Ghéon: A Saint is never broadminded. A Saint never compromises. Tender of conscience for himself, he is equally tender for others. He does not think that the word "indulgence" covers everything, for sin is sin. Other speak of it; he sees it---sees it almost physically, as a devouring leprosy, as the first spark of the everlasting fire. Poor little country priest, had he come to save souls or not? Did he love them as his own? With his own soul shivering in his meager body, do you think that he would let others sleep quietly in false security? He is as responsible to God for his flock as he was to his father for the handful of sheep that he used to take out to pasture. And if the full number is not there when evening comes? If a single ewe caught in the brambles suffers through his fault? if truth is inescapable. Of what use is it to anybody to try to whittle it down? Like St. Vincent Ferrer, the apostle of thunder, the Curé de Ars, the tenderest of hearts, the most merciful of men, the least made to hurl anathemas, through tenderness and mercy set out to preach the gospel of fear. As yet no one had any suspicion of it. He made the usual round of visits; almost everywhere he was received with friendliness. After all, they hadn't expected anyone very special---bishops are not in the habit of sending eagles into the country. A very pious man, very simple, very timid, acquainted with the labours of the fields---so they saw him. He would pray in his corner and not disturb people. They would exchange small services---chat with him from time to time, even perhaps go a shade more frequently to Mass, because he appeared to attach some importance to it, and nobody would like to hurt his feelings! Yes, no doubt, an acquisition. At the end of his visiting M. Vianney knew all that as well as his parishioners. He had made discreet inquiries as to their situation, their occupations, their way of life. He was skilled enough by well-chosen remarks to provoke information or that silence which reveals so much more. So that he knew quite precisely what each soul had made of the gift received at Baptism. The picture was not brilliant. Out of fifty families there were five or six really devout, in addition to the lady of the chateau, Mlle. des Carets, a holy woman by any standard.  Clearly the kind of disease that demanded a desperate remedy. He went up into the pulpit on Sunday, and this is something of what he said: "Christ wept over Jerusalem ... I weep over you. How can I help weeping, my brethren? Hell exists. It is not my invention. God has told us. And you pay no heed ... you do all that is necessary to be sent to it. You blaspheme the Name of Cod. You spend your evenings in the cabarets. You give yourselves to the sinful pleasures of dancing. You steal from your neighbour's field. You do a world of things which are offenses against God. Do you think then that God does not see you? He sees you, my children, as I see you, and you shall be treated accordingly. What misery! Hell exists. I beg you: think of Hell. Do you think that your Curé will let you be cast into Hell to burn there for ever and ever! Are you going to cause this suffering to your Curé?" He had learnt his sermon with great trouble; but he did not recite it, he lived it---without anger, without violence, his voice and his eyes full of tears. We may imagine that the congregation was surprised. What? Is that the same man? The same who spoke so sensibly about land, and ploughs, and cattle? The same who appeared so sympathetic to the body's sufferings, who could give you good prescriptions to cure whooping cough? Truly, he entered into the heart of his subject and into the heart of his hearers. He accused, he threatened. And it was not merely vain words in the air. He meant what he said. He demanded what he demanded. He demanded every iota that God demands. Surely this kind of thing passed reason? But he pronounced these words of terror so sadly and so gently that no one could be angry. What! it was necessary to change one's life? That needed thinking about---it had been out of mind too long. M. Vianney did not relax. The next Sunday he returned to the charge, insisted, was even stronger. He leant over the top of his pulpit like an Angel come to destroy and to save. His long hair, the strong bones of his face sweeping down from an enormous forehead, deeply furrowed, the hollow cheeks, a thin and sensitive nose with nostrils that quivered passionately, a mouth with the smile of a child, and an imperious chin, his blue eyes holding you and looking through you, his bony hands pointing at eternity, the whole goes to make an unforgettable picture that a man might love to gaze upon in real life, if he did not begin---and with cause---to be afraid of it.   Thus he would take for his theme, for example, the Gospel account of the Last Judgment, particularly that terrible word which dominates the whole: "Depart ye cursed." "Cursed by God! How frightful a disaster! My children, do you understand? Cursed by God, by God Who loves to bless! Cursed by God, Who is goodness itself! Cursed without remission, cursed eternally! Cursed by God!" No one thought of smiling, for he was in tears; he was crushed like the sinner under the maledictions that he was uttering. "When the end of the world comes," he went on, "each parishioner will meet his pastor and Our Lord Jesus Christ will say: 'Pastor, curse them!' 'What, Lord, am I to curse the children that I have Baptized to you?' 'I tell you, Pastor, curse them!' 'I, Lord, curse the children whom I have taught for you, to whom I have given your holy Body, to whom I have distributed the Bread of your Word?' The Pastor will say what he has done for them. Our Lord Jesus Christ will reply: 'Pastor, they did not listen to you enough; curse them. I command you, curse them.' Ah, my brethren, what grief for a pastor! You do not believe me? Yet it will be; yes, it will be." We may be tempted to find this religion too hard. But while the congregation stood shuddering in the depths of Hell, suddenly he snatched it up and carried it on his shoulders to the very threshold of the temple where St. Simeon holds the child Jesus in his arms, to the Communion rail where we receive God in Body and Soul, to Mount Tabor where He shows Himself transfigured, clad in the whiteness of snow and silver. "Come ye blessed of my Father!" On that side also the word has been spoken, and nothing can prevail against it. Without that, an eternity of suffering is unthinkable. The time of preparation is past and God's sickle sweeps us into His harvest. "We shall see God," cried the poor priest, "we shall see Him! Have you ever thought on that, my brethren? we shall see God, we shall see Him direct. We shall see Him as He is, face to face!" One might think that already he saw Him and could not turn his face away. An eye witness tells us that on one occasion, as though lost in his ecstasy, he kept on saying over a space of several minutes: "We shall see Him! We shall see Him!" In all this we are very far from religion as a habit, religion as a bulwark of law and order, religion as a policeman on duty over morals, religion as an occasion of smugness, even religion as overflowing pity. For this there is no adjective---it is religion pure and simple, religion for itself---that is, for God. Truly, "this is a hard saying." The Jews thought so, and said so long ago. It is the Word, that which by its very definition contradicts. Through it a lukewarm parish was recalled to fervour, brought back on to the plane of its eternal and supernatural destiny---and that almost overnight. The district of Ars is that bridge over the river which leads to damnation or to glory. Heaven is a reality, Hell is a reality, half-belief is no belief. As it worked out, his task was nothing less than to root out of this land ignorance, apathy and lack of conscience, blasphemy, impurity, lying and the frenzied hunt for pleasure---and to replace them by modesty, temperance, honesty and a love for the things of God. But, you say, if he demands so much, the luckless priest will obtain nothing. Another sermon or two like the last, and he will have an empty church to preach to. People may be gripped for the time, but they will take very good care not to come back. Then M. Vianney will take a less lofty tone and will preach salvation---on easier terms! So began the drama of his life as Curé. We have seen that he set up his abode in the presbytery next door to the church. It was a house of one story, squat and unpretentious, with a yard which lengthened out into a garden. At one time this was enclosed by a quick set hedge, well supplied with fruit trees. Now one sees only an ancient sapless elder. M. Vianney had the trees cut down to remove from the small boys of the countryside an occasion of theft, and later the hedge was replaced by a wall. For the rest, the place is just as it was on his first day, and the imagination need make no great effort to see the old priest wandering about, or lighting his lamp in the evening at the first floor window. Thus it was that his parishioners saw him. He had practically no secrets from them---and from the very day of his arrival his mode of life shocked them. Apart from the kitchen downstairs and the bedroom upstairs, he abandoned all the rooms in the house. He had neither servant girl nor housekeeper---he wished no one to live with him. Mère Bibost, whom he had brought from Ecully, used to come in of a day to sweep the bedroom. Following out his decision, he gave back to Mlle. des Garets the furniture which she lent so willingly, including, of course, the kitchen utensils, and, so we are told, the oven. He kept a saucepan, a bookshelf, a table, a few seats, a bed. The good people of Ars, like the good people of every other place, felt it right that a Curé, whatever his origin, should be a kind of gentleman, who owed it to his position, and whose parishioners owed it to his position to see that he had a certain degree of ease and comfort. A Curé must look the part. A Curé has a position to maintain. It is customary for him to receive his fellow priests at his table and dine them well. Was M. Vianney to break the tradition? Did he propose to tarnish that renown which clerical meals have justly enjoyed from the beginning of the Christian era---or at any rate, from within two or three hundred years thereafter? M. Vianney knew what he was about. He let them talk. The one thing he saw quite clearly was that the devil was installed in the village and must be driven out. He drew up his plan of campaign. Bit by bit his bed, which still looked well under its curtained canopy, was simplified, so to speak. One day the mattress went to a poor man who was ill; the pillow and the bolster went the same road. A board and some thin sacking kept their place under the bedclothes---nobody suspected it, for the Curé made his own bed. He slept there, too---there or somewhere else, sometimes in the barn, his head lying on a beam, sometimes in the kitchen on a heap of wood. Before going to bed he flogged himself strenuously, with a knotted cord helped out with a few spikes and leaden balls---for an hour together, so a neighbour tells us, and the woman who washed his clothes bears testimony that the left shoulder of his shirt was "all torn and stained with blood." But rigours of this sort were too brutal to give him that continued expiation which he felt to be necessary. He read in the Gospel that demons like those which seemed to haunt his parish were not to be cast out by anything but prayer and fasting. He took the Gospel quite simply and literally, going short of food, going short of sleep; he managed to kill two birds with the one stone by devoting to prayer the time which but for his mortifications he would have had to spend in bed and at meals. Before daybreak he went down into the church. Before the altar where his Lord and Master watched unceasingly, he knelt upright without support, fixed his eyes on the Tabernacle, joined his hands or spread out his arms, prayed, wept, groaned, meditated: "My God, my all, You see how I love You, and I do not love You enough. "My God, You have given me all; behold the little that I give You. Give me the strength to give more. "My God, here is all---take all: but convert my parish. If You do not convert it, it will be because I have not deserved it. "My God, I count my merits as nothing, but Yours are infinite. May they win for me the grace of suffering. "My God, I consent to suffer all that You may wish, for all my life ... for a hundred years ... and the most bitter suffering, but convert them. ..." Sometimes he spoke aloud, and his words were overheard. At dawn he said his Mass, slowly, almost always with tears, sometimes with a great smile, as though he were addressing the Angels gathered about the altar---his own guardian Angel, the guardian Angel of the parish, the guardian Angels of all in his congregation. Joy or suffering? He no longer knew. They are so closely intermingled in the chalice, that the joy of a friend of God resembles suffering, his suffering resembles joy. He continued his thanksgiving endlessly. Obviously, he could not go without eating altogether. In the morning he had a crust---and another when he thought of it. At midday and the evening, one or two cold potatoes---he used to have enough cooked for a week at a time in an iron pot, which is shown to pilgrims; on rare occasions he might even have a third. But this last, as he confessed later, was simply for pleasure. The Widow Bibost, who looked after the house, and after her departure, the Widow Renard, did their uttermost to improve his menu with little dishes of their own making, which they used to bring between two plates, but he was not to be caught like that twice---either he refused to open the door, or else he declared that any addition to his meal would make him ill. Occasionally he substituted for his potatoes either an egg cooked in the ashes or one of those black corn cakes which are called in the countryside mâte-faim---killers of hunger---a grimly appropriate word. In every possible way he tried to kill his, as, for instance, so we are told, by trying to live on nothing but sorrel---"but I could not keep it up," he said; or by remaining in Lent three days at a time without food. Mealtime gave him a chance to pay visits in his parish. He knew that he would find his people at table. He did not sit down. He spoke and he let them speak. The closest intimacy grew easily in that environment.   After that he would go for a walk in the fields, falling on his knees suddenly to pray, kissing the ground, trying to engrave on his memory the exact text of his next sermon. When he got back to his room, or more often to the sacristy, he laboured over these poor shreds of eloquence in an agony of despair. For hours in the morning, for hours during the day; again in the evening as late as he could bear. The deprivation of sleep, the hardest to bear, the most meritorious, was the one he embraced most willingly. Like St. Francis of Assisi, he wore down the beast, Brother Ass, only making pause when it could bear him no longer. Such was the way of his life for ten years together---a battle day after day unswerving, bitter, a battle won each day, a battle to be won afresh each day, with no hope of ever being finished for good with the enemy of mankind, who has come upon earth to tempt men and who will tempt them till the day of judgment.   But temptation is not sin. It is a trial which adds to man's strength, arming him against sin and redeeming the sins of others. Further, it is the unceasing proof of the constant help of grace, which makes a sort of hero of a poor priest. Before him and in him he had Our Lord and the Saints. He read their lives with passionate devotion in the Gospels, in the breviary, in an old book almost fallen in pieces, which give us the impression of a collection of fables, but in which everything that happens is exactly as Christ Our Lord promised it would happen. God can do anything through His Saints---marvels are attributed to them which they did not do, yet it is great gain for us to know that they could have done them. That was why M. Vianney in his sermons described the most staggering of the miracles---and that is why he was so certain that he could even convert his parish, if it were God's will. "If you had faith, you would move mountains." If he had not faith, no one ever had. Everything gets known in a village. News flies from door to door in an instant. At the château, the old lady, a very pious old lady, who set herself every day to say the Canonical Hours with her old servant, Saint-Phal, was no longer in doubt about the kind of man she was dealing with. He, who had sent back her furniture, who came into her drawing-room with his great thick shoes, who spoke to her with lowered eyes and never accepted any of the pleasant things she offered him, was not an eccentric but a chosen soul. M. Mandy, the mayor, said point-blank with obvious satisfaction, "They have sent us a Saint." The handful of families---Cinier, Chaffangeon, Lassagne, Verchères---the only ones with any real Christianity up to that time, closed in about their new Curé, feeling strongly that he would need their help. With certain others, less fervent, an attraction they could not explain took the place of curiosity and counterbalanced their fear. For the men M. Vianney re-established the Confraternity of the Most Holy Sacrament. Some of the girls he grouped in a Confraternity of the Rosary. Catechism classes were started for the children, taking place in the early morning from six o'clock, before work; he demanded that they should be present regularly, properly clad, with full attention. The most punctual was to be rewarded with a statue. There was nothing he loved more than to awaken these fresh young souls, to plough and sow the virgin field. He had received the gift of being as a child, and he knew how to speak to children on their own level.   Here he was under no constraint. He felt more at his ease than in the pulpit; he could speak conversationally. But the religion he taught was in no sense scaled down. God must be served first. "There are many Christians who do not know why they are in the world. Oh, my God, why have You placed me in the world?" "To save you." "And why do You wish to save me?" "Because I love you." "God has created us and placed us in the world because He loves us. To save our souls, we must know, love and serve God. How beautiful a life! How beautiful, how great, to know, to love, to serve God. We have nothing but that to do in this world. Anything whatever that we do apart from that is waste of time. "Worldly people say that it is too difficult to save one's soul. Yet there is nothing easier: keep the Commandments of God and the Church, and avoid the Seven Deadly Sins; or, to put it another way, do good and avoid evil. ... Here is a good rule of conduct. Do only what one can offer to God." In all this, what purity, what lucidity---words used for nothing but for the thought that they convey. What strength, too, in the thought! "Do only what one can offer to God." The child who fixes this rule in his memory and keeps it ever before him is certain, without any other teaching, to attain by the time he comes to die the fullness of the Christian life. For the children of his congregation as for their elders, M. Vianney set a standard no lower than his own. To attract people to his church, he made up his mind to improve its appearance---which would not only attract people, but would also make it less unworthy of God. There, again, you have a point in his character. For himself he had a soutane, a hat, a neckband, a pair of shoes: one of each, to be worn to the bitter end; and he never had a cloak. Nothing, he held, is too ugly, too worn out, too wretched for the man; nothing is too splendid for the minister of God. When he mounted to the altar, he was ready to cover his humility with all the treasures of Golconda---if they had been put at his disposal. He could never find any ornaments splendid enough to clothe the priest when he represented God, the High Priest. Of all the money that he was to receive in the future---and he received a great deal---what did not go to the poor was poured out with splendid generosity for the beautifying of these services to the honour of God. Chasubles, altar linen, candelabra, statues---he refused none of them. In the beginning it was urgently necessary to repair and strengthen the church, if possible to enlarge it, for all that the worshippers did not yet by any means fill it. In 1830 the wooden steeple was replaced by a square tower of red brick. Antique columns in the Roman style were built to support the double windows. A second bell was hung, and baptized, "The Bell of the Holy Rosary." Inside, a first chapel was opened to the right of the nave in honour of the Blessed Virgin---her statue decorated with handsome wooden panels, carved in relief with sheaves of wheat and bunches of grapes. Opposite, a little later, a second was built for St. John the Baptist. This time M. Vianney found himself short of funds, and just as his carpenter was pressing for payment, some person unknown, who had no knowledge of his difficulty sent him the necessary money. Nevertheless, in the years that followed he decided not to tempt Heaven, buying only pictures and statues---for he wished that the Saints, of whom he spoke so much to his congregation, should be living realities to them---St. Joseph, St. Peter, St. Sixtus, St. Blaise, St. Michael the Archangel (and many an Angel beside), St. Francis of Assisi, St. Philomena, St. Benedict Joseph Labre. He also acquired an Ecce Homo. And so his little church was populated. It was heaven on a small scale. For all these decorations, Mlle. des Garets acted the part of Providence. Perhaps, too, she guided him in his choice. M. Vianney, who apparently had not a trace of artistic education, acquired nothing, or practically nothing, that was not of sound taste, as we may judge by what he has left behind at Ars. In particular, a gilt wooden statue, at which miracles have been worked, a statue of the Queen of Heaven with rays of gold springing from her hands, is a marvel of its sort. Perhaps, like certain other Saints, he possessed a mysterious sense which made him prefer the more beautiful as being more true. Assuredly you would have embarrassed the poor priest considerably if you had asked him to define the beautiful. But it must not be forgotten that God was to grant him visions which were not exclusively intellectual. We may well suppose that they were of as much value as human masterpieces, and could form the taste of a simple soul, free from convention and prejudice. Even when the other three chapels---those of St. Philomena, of the Holy Angels, and of the Ecce Homo--were built, when the front of the church, the antique pediment, the two balustrades and the flight of stairs were rebuilt, the original church lost none of its essential humility. Even its treasures---a point to be remembered in their favour---move us less than the two little plain wooden pulpits---the one perched on two irons, S-shaped, from which the Curé delivered his sermons, the other on a step where he taught the children catechism. Here everything takes the form and colour of prayer, and all is stripped away save adoration. The result of these first efforts was that people paid visits to the sanctuary more willingly and more regularly. A Curé who does not eat and does not sleep, who gives everything away, who prays as no one has ever been known to pray, who says his Mass like an Angel, and who decorates his church, is a phenomenon so surprising that one is bound to be a little proud of it. One may well excuse his being somewhat exacting and one may well try to do what would please him. So few men went to Communion at Easter that he was plunged in sorrow, and sorrowfully he told them why. When it was time to bring in the harvest, many gave them elves a dispensation from Mass. He told them very plainly that it was scandalous and doubly scandalous, both to work on Sunday and to miss Mass. He met a drunken man who swore; another not drunk who swore likewise. "You are then brute beasts, my children?" They prepared a "vogue," otherwise a local festival. Behind the church, between the walnut trees, they hung garlands of leaves and flowers. At night the lamps were lit; boys and girls arrived arm in arm, singing. They danced all night, and all the unions that resulted did not finish in church. M. Vianney saw and heard. No matter what he thought---but God? Obviously he must return to the charge. It was necessary to apply the red hot iron to the diseased part. Had people who were continually offending God any right to a place in God's church? M. Vianney took them to task from the pulpit, put them to shame in public. He did not mind upsetting a score, if thereby he might but convince two of them. "God has given us bread for our bodies. He has given us His Body for our souls. You are very pleased to have the bread He gives. Why do you refuse His Body? Sunday is God's property, His Own day, the Lord's day. He has made all the days of the week. He might have kept them all, but He has given you six and has reserved to Himself only the seventh. By what right do you touch what does not belong to you? "The cabaret is the devil's shop, the school where Hell pours forth and teaches its doctrine; the place where souls are put up for sale, where families are ruined, where health is spoilt, where quarrels begin, where murders are committed. ... Ah, cabaret-keepers! the devil does not torment them much! He despises them and spits on them." Speaking of dancing, he said: "My brethren, Christians who go into a dance-room leave their guardian Angel at the door, and it is a devil who takes his place, so that very soon there are as many devils as dancers in the room." As they heard these statements, these appeals, these anathemas, those who had drunk or blasphemed, those who worked on Sunday and those who did not perform their Easter duties, those who missed Mass and did not miss the dance, blushed and held their heads low. They felt upon them the reproach of the little band of faithful souls which their pastor had already managed to gather about him. And when they returned to their sin, they no longer found themselves comfortable at it. The reason was that this devil of a man---if so one may style him---stood no nonsense from those who wished to evade the rules. Always going and coming across the fields and along the streets, he seemed to see nothing and in fact missed nothing. With eyes closed he would go to the exact place where some sin was about to be committed, as though he had seen it in advance, had even scented it. After all, is it not common knowledge that for the Saints sin has a smell? One Sunday in summer he went by a hay waggon, behind which the waggoner was hiding. He remarked to him jestingly: "You are very upset to find me here, my friend. But the good God sees you always. He it is that you must fear." Further on a peasant was taking his daughter to a dance. He began to make excuses, stammered, defended himself as best he might, made no hand of it. "I shall not let her dance," he said. "Oh!" the priest said ironically, "If she doesn't dance, her heart will." He did not hesitate to refuse absolution to those who persevered in their fault. They might revolt once or even twice, but in the end practically all submitted. Naturally the old submitted first, having less passion and more good sense than the young. They realized that one did not grow richer by Sunday work, still less by going too often to the cabaret or by extravagant spending. At Ars there were four cabarets, and the owners---particularly those whose places were near the church--complained. One in particular told M. Vianney that he was ruining him. The Curé got together a small sum of money---enough to buy a cottage and a piece of land---and he closed his cabaret. Against the dancing mania, which swept the whole country, M. Vianney resorted to heroic remedies. One morning he set off along the road to meet the violinist. "How much do they give you?" he asked. He gave the man double and sent him away. The hour of the dance arrived---they had to do without music. The young men swore and lost their temper. They decided to make the best of it and dance without the fiddle. One of them offered to sing---but that proved to be not quite the same thing. The girls were reluctant, though some let themselves be dragged on to the floor against their will. But no one put any heart into it. They did their best to force some appearance of gaiety, crying out and stamping their feet in a sort of fury. And M. Vianney calmly came out of his garden as though he meant simply to go into the church. He said nothing. He was not going to say anything. His appearance, armed with his poor spiritual thunders or simply with his silent reproach, was quite sufficient. Song and dance ceased together, and the crowd dispersed---"like a flock of sparrows," we are told. The more determined spirits went further afield to dance, but only a few of them. The battle was over. At any rate, the house of God would not suffer again from their nearness. And, indeed, after this very impressive victory they even gave up dancing under the walnut trees on the esplanade. A decree of the mayor soon made it illegal, and the cabarets near the church had to close their doors for want of customers. The evil did, as we have said, go further afield, but it was now only superficial. From all this we may judge just how strong was the power that the Curé had gained over his parish. Henceforth the heart of the village was the property of God. Obviously there had to be some new arrangement to fit circumstances so very much altered. There is no denying that a Sunday without pleasure is a tedious business. M. Vianney got them to love Vespers. After Vespers he suggested a Rosary. The habit appeared pleasing, and soon, to the best of the young women, it became a necessity, and acted as a new bond of union among them. Later he invited them to gather cherries in his garden; they were free to enjoy themselves---while he withdrew to his room. When they had had enough of the pastime, he brought them together in the kitchen to give them a reading from the marvelous history of some Saint. All this time dancing was going on at the other end of the village, and some of the girls were heavy at heart to be missing it. "Are you not happier here?" Possibly they were. The notion of joy underwent some changes. M. Vianney set about substituting the innocent and untroubled mirth of the children of God for the gross pleasures of the world. The first sort has at least the advantage that one does not weary of it. Very soon it had come to this, that even on weekdays people never missed coming to church to recite the evening prayers.   This campaign against the spirit of the age lasted more than ten years, but it had to end in complete victory. Cheapjacks disappeared from the esplanade together with the people who ran the dances; cabarets might open again, but could do no business. There were no more drunkards in the district, and the graceless girls who went off to festivals in the neighbouring villages were received on their return with the soundest of thrashings. There were outcries, naturally; a few of the young men, in their exasperation, set up the standard of revolt. Not daring to attack their Curé openly, they made up slanderous stories and spread them broadcast---accusing him, among other things, of attracting girls to his house for immoral purposes, and of spending his nights in debauchery---that being the reason, as they triumphantly pointed out, of his thinness and pallor. He was a luxurious liver, a hypocrite. What with anonymous letters, obscene songs, wild beating of pots and pans in front of the presbytery, his persecution was fairly thorough. Seven of his parishioners came to him in a body, saying that he must leave the village. The story is even told that a woman of the streets came night after night beneath his windows, accusing him, with a flood of unclean insults, of being the father of her child. In the morning when he came out of his house he often found his door bespattered with filth.   After all, anyone who sets up God against Satan must expect reprisals, and M. Vianney knew it. He let the hurricane blow past, gathering his little flock closer about him, seeing it grow by a new soul every day. He did not contradict the slanderers, he did not leave his post. Thanks be to God, no one could undo the good he had done, provided that he continued to strengthen the edifice with prayers, tears, fasting, watching and the shedding of blood. He would re-enter his room, deafened by the howling of his enemies, go down on his knees, strip, and tear his innocent body with scourges for the salvation of the unhappy sinners. Continue forward. 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