CHAPTER XIII
THE CONGREGATION OF THE MISSION IS BORN
THE CONGREGATION OF THE MISSION IS BORN
"They will give themselves to the service of poor country people."
In the afternoon of 17th April, 1625, the de Gondi palace in the rue Pavée in the parish of Saint Sauveur, witnessed some unusual activity. Shortly after midday two notaries from Châtelet, M. Dupuyis and M. Le Boucher, arrived there. They were immediately received by the master and mistress of this household together with their chaplain, M. Vincent. There then followed a simple ceremony during which a contract was read and duly signed. However routine an event that may have been for the notaries, who must have concluded dozens of these formalities every year; in the eyes of one person present, Monsieur Vincent, the signing of that contract was of overwhelming importance. It was at this moment, and by means of this contract, that a new ecclesiastical community was born; the Congregation of the Mission.
It was still not very clear what sort of a child this would turn out to be; a pious association, "company, congregation, or confraternity". It could have been known by any of these names. And at this stage nobody knew who would be in this community. In fact, only one member was present and this was the Founder, who committed himself to recruit within the space of a year, six ecclesiastics or at least the number of these who could be supported financially by the foundation.
However, the motives and the aims of this pious work were crystal clear. Whereas the townspeople had their spiritual needs attended to by a good number of priests, doctors and religious, the poor people in country areas were left abandoned. The distinguished and influential M. Philippe Manuel de Gondi and his wife, Marguerite de Silly, thought that they could remedy this evil by setting up a pious association of priests who would decline all offers of work in the big cities and would "dedicate themselves completely and exclusively to the salvation of poor country people; going from village to village at the community's expense to preach, instruct, exhort and catechise these people, and encourage them all to make a good general confession of their past life."
The juridical structure of the new association was no more than rudimentary. It only named M. Vincent superior and director for life, leaving it to his discretion to choose his collaborators. These would have to renounce any other office, benefice or dignity for at least eight to ten years and at the end of this period the Superior could authorise them to accept any parish that the Bishop might wish to give them. The association was meant to be a permanent one. In the event of Vincent's death provision was made for the remaining members to elect a new Superior by a majority vote.
Certain distinctive characteristics were already apparent; the commitment not to preach in towns where there was an archbishop, bishop or presidial; the members "will dedicate themselves entirely to the care of poor country people" and their services will always be given free of charge since it was the intention that the missionaries should be supported from community funds so that they could freely give what they had freely been given by the liberal hand of God.
The contract provided for the compilation of community rules and it traced their basic outlines; life in common in obedience to M. Vincent, giving missions from October to June, a spiritual retreat lasting three or four days to be made in the house at the end of each month's work, helping parish priests and curates on Sundays and Feastdays during the summer when requested.
Their field of action was to be the estates of M. and Mde. de Gondi and they were obliged to preach missions, covering the whole area, every five years. If there was any time over they were free to devote it to apostolic work elsewhere, and in particular to giving spiritual help to the galley slaves.
In return for all this the de Gondi donated to the association the capital sum of 45,000 livres, 37,000 livres of which was counted out in cash and handed over in the notaries' presence. The balance would be paid within a year, and in the meantime the donors' possessions were mortgaged to this amount. This capital was to be invested in property or established revenues. M. and Mde. de Gondi, their heirs, and successors, were named founders of the work in perpetuity with the rights and prerrogatives set down by canon law. But they renounced all claims to office and made no demands regarding funeral or anniversary Masses.
Once the document had been read, the contracting parties and the notaries put their signature to the document. Vincent signed his name in a bold, firm hand in the centre of the page just below the signature of Marguerite de Silly. [1]
That contract gave shape and form to the timid little light that had been lit eight years earlier by the bedside of the dying peasant in Gannes. For Vincent, it was not the end of anything, but rather a starting off point for a task whose magnitude could never have been foreseen. At the age of forty five, and at the height of his maturity and creative powers, Vincent, now sure of God's will, convinced about his mission and confident in his strength, felt ready to take on the work and the struggles that lay ahead. There was one minor clause in the document that he must have been very reluctant to accept. This stipulated that "the said M. de Paul should continue to reside with the de Gondis and to give them and their family the spiritual assistance he had provided for so many years up to now." Events were soon to release him from that burdensome obligation.
A perfume that fades away
It was just as though Marguerite de Silly's only reason to go on living was the foundation of the Mission, because she survived the signing of the contract by barely two months. On 23rd June, 1625, she died a holy death in her Paris home at the age of forty two. [2] Once her work was over she disappeared quietly and discreetly, like a flower which has given all its perfume. At the time of her death, her husband was a long way from Paris, on duty as General of the Galleys, in the southern ports of France. Mde. de Gondi, however, had the consolation of being attended and comforted by Vincent de Paul, as she had always wished. [3] She left him and his assistant, M. Portail, a grateful remembrance in her will. She bequeathed two legacies to Vincent, one worth 1,500 livres and the other 900 livres, while M. Portail received 300 livres. [4] She begged Vincent never to leave her husband's house and to stay with her children when M. de Gondi died. [5] It was a request that Vincent regretfully could not comply with. The Countess, whose entreaties had caused him to return to Chatillon, was now dead, and his mission in the de Gondi household was at an end.
From nobleman to priest
However, he still had one painful duty to perform; he had to break the sad news to the General of the Galleys. As soon as Mde. de Gondi was buried in the Carmelite convent at rue Chapon, Vincent made his way to Provence. The General was not in the best frame of mind to accept calmly the sad news, A few days earlier there had occurred a very unpleasant incident which had put him out of temper.
On June 16th his return to the port was not marked by the customary gun salute because the Governor had kept the ammunition and gunpowder locked away. A few days later the Governor paid a visit to de Dongi, and he was accompanied by an armed escort. This was an insult, not only to the Supreme Commander of the Fleet, but also to the royal standard on the flagship as no arms were allowed past that. M. de Gondi reminded the Governor of this, but the latter defied him again, expressing his anger with the port and went on to say it was very hot there. De Gondi retorted that they would get even hotter if he dared to repeat the offence. Action followed words when he ordered his men to disarm one of the Governor's guards they found walking along the quay, and threw him into the sea. The Governor's response was to order the city officials to arm the surrounding areas. For his part de Gondi drew up his galleys with their prows pointing towards the port and ready to fire. The terrified officials hastened to say that they didn't want to jeopardise the peace of their town by getting involved in a quarrel between two individuals. De Gondi gave the order for the galleys to heave to.
That wasn't the end of the conflict. The Governor retired to his property in Soliers and he let de Gondi know that he thought it very strange that the latter should stay in the city while he himself was away in the country. De Gondi took this as a challenge. He went to Soliers and sent word to his adversary that he was going hunting and that if the Governor wanted to join in, he would find it very entertaining. Some captains of the galleys went in search of their leader and persuaded him to return to the town. But when he reached the gates of the city the soldiers on guard did not salute him, and worse still, they had their weapons drawn. The irascible General charged at them and wounded two soldiers with his sword. There then followed a skirmish which lasted for some hours. The city magistrates were alerted and they hurried to the scene. They calmed down the two antagonists and placed the General under the protection of the city guard. Meanwhile the Governor had been informed of the turn of events and he then set off for Toulon with a force of 120 men. His uncle, the Bishop, went out to meet him and made him return to Soliers. The two adversaries were separated, and the mediation of influential people together with a peremptory order from Richelieu, brought the matter to a bloodless if not very amicable conclusion. [6]
Notwithstanding his pious initiatives, Philippe Manuel de Gondi was still the haughty descendant of a breed of captains. In these difficult circumstances the news of his wife's death came like a thunderbolt from heaven. Vincent used all his eloquence to try and console him. He also asked the General to dispense him from the obligation of complying with Mde. de Gondi's dying wish that Vincent remain in their household. The General agreed to this all the more readily since he himself had decided to leave the house and enter holy orders. The troubled events he had just lived through were, for him, a call to conversion that he could not ignore. But doubtless he was also influenced by the political turn of event following the rise of Richelieu. The General was far sighted enough to realise that the de Gondi star was in eclipse. So in less than a year after his wife's death he entered the Oratorian Order and began to prepare for the priesthood. That was 6th April, 1626. Thereafter he would be known as Father de Gondi. [7]
"We would leave the key with a neighbour."
Once the bonds that tied him to the de Gondi palace were broken, Vincent found himself free to devote all his time to the missions and to developing the infant Congregation. In October or November of that year he moved into the Collège de Bons Enfants. [8] His sole companion at that time was the ever faithful Antoine Portail. To comply with the obligations laid down for the foundation, they had to find a third priest and they paid him 50 crowns a year. [9] These were heroic times for the foundation. Vincent would recall them later with evident nostalgia:
"The three of us would go from village to village giving missions. When we left we would leave the key with one of our neighbours and ask him to go and sleep in the house. However, at that time I had just one sermon which I preached with a thousand variations, its subject was the fear of God." [10]
His main concern was to bring together the small group of missionaries he was committed to recruiting. He had a year in which to do this but recruitment was proving more difficult than he had expected. It was one thing to preach missions occasionally but it was a very different matter to commit oneself to it permanently and to give up the security one had acquired. And so there began for Vincent a period in his life when he would struggle to consolidate his project in the face of resistance and lack of understanding. Two candidates he had counted on for the Mission let him down at the last minute. Father Belin, who had been his companion for years in the service of the de Gondi family and in ministering to the galley slaves, withdrew because it was clearly God's will that he remain at Villepreux where he was chaplain to a noble family, and Louis Callon, a priest from Aumale was obliged to return to his parish because of ill health.
Vincent thought that things would be easier once the community had ecclesiastical approval. He had no difficulty in obtaining this. It was granted by the Archbishop of Paris, Jean François de Gondi, on 24th April, 1926. A curious case of a community being approved before it existed! In fact, just four months later, on 4th September, the first three companions signed, in the presence of a notary, the act of affiliation to the infant congregation, company or confraternity. These were the ever faithful Portail and two priests from the diocese of Amiens; François du Coudray and Jean de la Salle who had been living with Vincent since March and April respectively. The first thing they did together was to go on pilgrimage to Montmartre but Vincent was not able to accompany them because of illness. Their reason for going was to ask the holy martyrs to obtain for them the grace of poverty. Was this a deliberate wish to repeat the gesture made by the first Jesuits who joined St. Ignatius in going to Montmartre for the same intention? [15]
Shortly afterwards another four members joined the Community; Jean Becu, Antoine Lucas who was not yet ordained, Joseph Brunet and Jean d'Horgny. The "little company", as Vincent was to call it all through his life, was at last a reality and not just a project written down on paper.
Burning the boats
Vincent realised that the time had come for him to burn his boats. He had reached the point of no return. He decided, first of all, to dispose of his personal property. On the same day, and in the same notary's office as the three companions had signed their act of entrance into the Institute, he freely and irrevocably renounced all his paternal inheritance in favour of his brothers and sisters and their children. This is an interesting document because it gives us some idea of Vincent's property and the financial situation of his family.
The most important item was the sum of 900 livres (had he inherited this from Mde. de Gondi?) that Vincent ha
already advanced to his brothers to pay off their debts, and a farmstead comprising farmhouse, woods and arable lands which he left to one of his sisters. Problems must have arisen at the time the deed was to be executed and this explains why four years later, in 1630, Vincent had a new will drawn up, leaving the same goods to the same beneficiaries. The properties donated by Vincent now came into the hands of his executors, M. Louis de Saint Martin d'Agès and his son Caesar. There are some interesting differences between the first and second documents. The most significat difference is that in the deed of gift of 1626 there is only mention of goods inherited from his father; in the will dated 1630 reference is made to inheritances from father and mother. [16]
So the death of Vincent's mother must have occurred in the interval between the two wills being made and not, as Coste thought, when he calculated she must have died before 1626. [17] If this was the case then Providence had asked of the new Founder an even more painful act of detachment than his voluntary renunciation of his property.
Another death during these years was to sadden Vincent's heart. Cardinal Bérulle died suddenly while saying Mass on 2nd October, 1629. A contemporary poet captured the impression made by this event in a beautiful couplet: "Coepta sub extremis nequeo dum Sacra Sacerdos perficere, at saltem victima perficiam".
"If I cannot complete the holy Sacrifice as priest then I will at least do so as victim."
The departure of Bérulle, as we shall see, was to have important political consequences. In spite of the fact that Vincent had been distancing himself from his former spiritual guide, and that in latter years they were practically enemies, Bérulle's death saddened Vincent who continued to speak of him with affection. [18] In was as if some invisible hand were knocking down, one after another, the pillars which had been his support at the beginning of his mission. Marguerite de Silly in 1625, his mother in 1627 or 1628, Bérulle in 1629. He was losing past friends but future friend were gathering round him.
The foundation contract stipulated that would be members of the Cngregation had to renounce every ecclesiastical office or benefice. Vincent had to be the first to comply. Of
all the benefices he had acquired in the years of his wordly aspirations, only one remained. This was the one he loved best, the parish of Clichy whose titular appointment he had retained through all the trials of the previous 15 years. Now the time had come to give up Clichy. He did this in that same year, 1626. We know this because according to yet another legal document, 1630, we learn that he had received from his successor, Jean Souillard, the last 100 livres of the 400 livres stipulated for the transfer. Vincent's realism and strong financial acumen would not allow him to hand over the parish "purely and simply as a gift, with no pension" as Abelly believed. [19] Such were the customs of his time. Had not his predecessor as principal of the Bons Enfants exacted an annual pension of 200 livres for the rest of his life? [20] Perhaps it is in this sense of not asking for a life pension that we should understand Abelly's phrase "purely and simply". After all, the flourishing parish of Clichy was worth a good deal more than the pile of ruined buildings known as the Collège de Bons Enfants. [21]
Vincent gave up the Bons Enfants, too. The College had been made over to him personally but the Archbishop of Paris had intended it to house the Congregation. So as soon as the Institute received afficial approval from the same Archbishop, Vincent had the property put in the name of the Congregation. The Archbishop issued the decree of collective ownership on 20th July, 1626. But there must have been a legal problem, perhaps because the Congregation had not, as yet, received royal approval. Once this was obtained a second episcopal decree was published. [22]
"The most distinguished member of my family"
Vincent's detachment from temporal goods was matched by a degree of spiritual detachment that is hard to asses
because there is no direct testimony to it. One single incident at this time can shed some light on this hidden process. One day (it must have been in 1629 or 1630) one of Vincent's nephews turned up at St. Lazare. You could tell a mile off that the good man was a peasant. His appearance, and especially his clothes, marked him out as a typical peasant from that locality. Vincent felt ashamed to acknowledge that desperately poor and down at heel relation. He arranged for the man to be brought in unobtrusively. This was the old demon of his youth coming back to tempt him, the embarrassment he felt at having to go through the streets of Dax with a father who was badly dressed and lame. The bad impulse only lasted a moment and he quickly overcame it. He ran out of the house and embraced and kissed his relative openly in the street. Then he took him by the arm and led him into the college courtyard. He sent for all the members of the Company and introduced his nephew to each one saying, "This is the most distinguished member of my family." It was visiting time. Vincent repeated the introduction for every visitor. Canon Saint Martin personally witnessed the event and it is he who tells the story.
It seems that the main reason for the nephew's visit was that he had come to consult his uncle about a promise of marriage. Might he not have come also to present some claim to the property allocated by Vincent in 1626? In actual fact, by the terms of the will drawn up in 1630, one of the nephews, Thomas Daigrand who was the son of Vincent's older sister, was better provided for. Vincent had to drain the chalice to the dregs. His nephew had no money for the return journey. He was reluctant to use community money so he begged an alms from the Marquise de Maignalay, the pious sister of M. de Gondi. With the 10 crowns she donated, the young man set off on the 180 leagues (700 Kilometres) return journey which he made on foot of course. Furthermore, at the next community exercise Vincent accused himself in front of everyone, of having been ashamed of his rough and badly dressed nephew and of wanting him to be brought secretly to his room. [23] At last, the earlier Vincent who dreamed of worldly success and looked on the priesthood as a means of advancing his family's fortunes, was buried once and for all.
Vincent had crossed all the bridges and had now reached the other bank of his life in the company of that handful of young priests. Only one of them, Du Coudray, had turned 40;the friend he had known longest, Portail, was not yet 36 and they all looked to Vincent as their father and spiritual guide, the motivating force behind their apostolate, the one who would orientate them in doctrine and organise the little group. It was a community that had to be built up from thefoundations even while the stones that comprised it were still being fashioned. Vincent, without daring to say so, (he would say it later on when old age and the passage of time would help him overcome any inhibitations of false modesty), was thinking of St. Benedict, St. Bruno and St. Ignatius as they started their life's work. The task ahead was enormous and there would be no shortage of problems.
In the afternoon of 17th April, 1625, the de Gondi palace in the rue Pavée in the parish of Saint Sauveur, witnessed some unusual activity. Shortly after midday two notaries from Châtelet, M. Dupuyis and M. Le Boucher, arrived there. They were immediately received by the master and mistress of this household together with their chaplain, M. Vincent. There then followed a simple ceremony during which a contract was read and duly signed. However routine an event that may have been for the notaries, who must have concluded dozens of these formalities every year; in the eyes of one person present, Monsieur Vincent, the signing of that contract was of overwhelming importance. It was at this moment, and by means of this contract, that a new ecclesiastical community was born; the Congregation of the Mission.
It was still not very clear what sort of a child this would turn out to be; a pious association, "company, congregation, or confraternity". It could have been known by any of these names. And at this stage nobody knew who would be in this community. In fact, only one member was present and this was the Founder, who committed himself to recruit within the space of a year, six ecclesiastics or at least the number of these who could be supported financially by the foundation.
However, the motives and the aims of this pious work were crystal clear. Whereas the townspeople had their spiritual needs attended to by a good number of priests, doctors and religious, the poor people in country areas were left abandoned. The distinguished and influential M. Philippe Manuel de Gondi and his wife, Marguerite de Silly, thought that they could remedy this evil by setting up a pious association of priests who would decline all offers of work in the big cities and would "dedicate themselves completely and exclusively to the salvation of poor country people; going from village to village at the community's expense to preach, instruct, exhort and catechise these people, and encourage them all to make a good general confession of their past life."
The juridical structure of the new association was no more than rudimentary. It only named M. Vincent superior and director for life, leaving it to his discretion to choose his collaborators. These would have to renounce any other office, benefice or dignity for at least eight to ten years and at the end of this period the Superior could authorise them to accept any parish that the Bishop might wish to give them. The association was meant to be a permanent one. In the event of Vincent's death provision was made for the remaining members to elect a new Superior by a majority vote.
Certain distinctive characteristics were already apparent; the commitment not to preach in towns where there was an archbishop, bishop or presidial; the members "will dedicate themselves entirely to the care of poor country people" and their services will always be given free of charge since it was the intention that the missionaries should be supported from community funds so that they could freely give what they had freely been given by the liberal hand of God.
The contract provided for the compilation of community rules and it traced their basic outlines; life in common in obedience to M. Vincent, giving missions from October to June, a spiritual retreat lasting three or four days to be made in the house at the end of each month's work, helping parish priests and curates on Sundays and Feastdays during the summer when requested.
Their field of action was to be the estates of M. and Mde. de Gondi and they were obliged to preach missions, covering the whole area, every five years. If there was any time over they were free to devote it to apostolic work elsewhere, and in particular to giving spiritual help to the galley slaves.
In return for all this the de Gondi donated to the association the capital sum of 45,000 livres, 37,000 livres of which was counted out in cash and handed over in the notaries' presence. The balance would be paid within a year, and in the meantime the donors' possessions were mortgaged to this amount. This capital was to be invested in property or established revenues. M. and Mde. de Gondi, their heirs, and successors, were named founders of the work in perpetuity with the rights and prerrogatives set down by canon law. But they renounced all claims to office and made no demands regarding funeral or anniversary Masses.
Once the document had been read, the contracting parties and the notaries put their signature to the document. Vincent signed his name in a bold, firm hand in the centre of the page just below the signature of Marguerite de Silly. [1]
That contract gave shape and form to the timid little light that had been lit eight years earlier by the bedside of the dying peasant in Gannes. For Vincent, it was not the end of anything, but rather a starting off point for a task whose magnitude could never have been foreseen. At the age of forty five, and at the height of his maturity and creative powers, Vincent, now sure of God's will, convinced about his mission and confident in his strength, felt ready to take on the work and the struggles that lay ahead. There was one minor clause in the document that he must have been very reluctant to accept. This stipulated that "the said M. de Paul should continue to reside with the de Gondis and to give them and their family the spiritual assistance he had provided for so many years up to now." Events were soon to release him from that burdensome obligation.
A perfume that fades away
It was just as though Marguerite de Silly's only reason to go on living was the foundation of the Mission, because she survived the signing of the contract by barely two months. On 23rd June, 1625, she died a holy death in her Paris home at the age of forty two. [2] Once her work was over she disappeared quietly and discreetly, like a flower which has given all its perfume. At the time of her death, her husband was a long way from Paris, on duty as General of the Galleys, in the southern ports of France. Mde. de Gondi, however, had the consolation of being attended and comforted by Vincent de Paul, as she had always wished. [3] She left him and his assistant, M. Portail, a grateful remembrance in her will. She bequeathed two legacies to Vincent, one worth 1,500 livres and the other 900 livres, while M. Portail received 300 livres. [4] She begged Vincent never to leave her husband's house and to stay with her children when M. de Gondi died. [5] It was a request that Vincent regretfully could not comply with. The Countess, whose entreaties had caused him to return to Chatillon, was now dead, and his mission in the de Gondi household was at an end.
From nobleman to priest
However, he still had one painful duty to perform; he had to break the sad news to the General of the Galleys. As soon as Mde. de Gondi was buried in the Carmelite convent at rue Chapon, Vincent made his way to Provence. The General was not in the best frame of mind to accept calmly the sad news, A few days earlier there had occurred a very unpleasant incident which had put him out of temper.
On June 16th his return to the port was not marked by the customary gun salute because the Governor had kept the ammunition and gunpowder locked away. A few days later the Governor paid a visit to de Dongi, and he was accompanied by an armed escort. This was an insult, not only to the Supreme Commander of the Fleet, but also to the royal standard on the flagship as no arms were allowed past that. M. de Gondi reminded the Governor of this, but the latter defied him again, expressing his anger with the port and went on to say it was very hot there. De Gondi retorted that they would get even hotter if he dared to repeat the offence. Action followed words when he ordered his men to disarm one of the Governor's guards they found walking along the quay, and threw him into the sea. The Governor's response was to order the city officials to arm the surrounding areas. For his part de Gondi drew up his galleys with their prows pointing towards the port and ready to fire. The terrified officials hastened to say that they didn't want to jeopardise the peace of their town by getting involved in a quarrel between two individuals. De Gondi gave the order for the galleys to heave to.
That wasn't the end of the conflict. The Governor retired to his property in Soliers and he let de Gondi know that he thought it very strange that the latter should stay in the city while he himself was away in the country. De Gondi took this as a challenge. He went to Soliers and sent word to his adversary that he was going hunting and that if the Governor wanted to join in, he would find it very entertaining. Some captains of the galleys went in search of their leader and persuaded him to return to the town. But when he reached the gates of the city the soldiers on guard did not salute him, and worse still, they had their weapons drawn. The irascible General charged at them and wounded two soldiers with his sword. There then followed a skirmish which lasted for some hours. The city magistrates were alerted and they hurried to the scene. They calmed down the two antagonists and placed the General under the protection of the city guard. Meanwhile the Governor had been informed of the turn of events and he then set off for Toulon with a force of 120 men. His uncle, the Bishop, went out to meet him and made him return to Soliers. The two adversaries were separated, and the mediation of influential people together with a peremptory order from Richelieu, brought the matter to a bloodless if not very amicable conclusion. [6]
Notwithstanding his pious initiatives, Philippe Manuel de Gondi was still the haughty descendant of a breed of captains. In these difficult circumstances the news of his wife's death came like a thunderbolt from heaven. Vincent used all his eloquence to try and console him. He also asked the General to dispense him from the obligation of complying with Mde. de Gondi's dying wish that Vincent remain in their household. The General agreed to this all the more readily since he himself had decided to leave the house and enter holy orders. The troubled events he had just lived through were, for him, a call to conversion that he could not ignore. But doubtless he was also influenced by the political turn of event following the rise of Richelieu. The General was far sighted enough to realise that the de Gondi star was in eclipse. So in less than a year after his wife's death he entered the Oratorian Order and began to prepare for the priesthood. That was 6th April, 1626. Thereafter he would be known as Father de Gondi. [7]
"We would leave the key with a neighbour."
Once the bonds that tied him to the de Gondi palace were broken, Vincent found himself free to devote all his time to the missions and to developing the infant Congregation. In October or November of that year he moved into the Collège de Bons Enfants. [8] His sole companion at that time was the ever faithful Antoine Portail. To comply with the obligations laid down for the foundation, they had to find a third priest and they paid him 50 crowns a year. [9] These were heroic times for the foundation. Vincent would recall them later with evident nostalgia:
"The three of us would go from village to village giving missions. When we left we would leave the key with one of our neighbours and ask him to go and sleep in the house. However, at that time I had just one sermon which I preached with a thousand variations, its subject was the fear of God." [10]
His main concern was to bring together the small group of missionaries he was committed to recruiting. He had a year in which to do this but recruitment was proving more difficult than he had expected. It was one thing to preach missions occasionally but it was a very different matter to commit oneself to it permanently and to give up the security one had acquired. And so there began for Vincent a period in his life when he would struggle to consolidate his project in the face of resistance and lack of understanding. Two candidates he had counted on for the Mission let him down at the last minute. Father Belin, who had been his companion for years in the service of the de Gondi family and in ministering to the galley slaves, withdrew because it was clearly God's will that he remain at Villepreux where he was chaplain to a noble family, and Louis Callon, a priest from Aumale was obliged to return to his parish because of ill health.
Vincent thought that things would be easier once the community had ecclesiastical approval. He had no difficulty in obtaining this. It was granted by the Archbishop of Paris, Jean François de Gondi, on 24th April, 1926. A curious case of a community being approved before it existed! In fact, just four months later, on 4th September, the first three companions signed, in the presence of a notary, the act of affiliation to the infant congregation, company or confraternity. These were the ever faithful Portail and two priests from the diocese of Amiens; François du Coudray and Jean de la Salle who had been living with Vincent since March and April respectively. The first thing they did together was to go on pilgrimage to Montmartre but Vincent was not able to accompany them because of illness. Their reason for going was to ask the holy martyrs to obtain for them the grace of poverty. Was this a deliberate wish to repeat the gesture made by the first Jesuits who joined St. Ignatius in going to Montmartre for the same intention? [15]
Shortly afterwards another four members joined the Community; Jean Becu, Antoine Lucas who was not yet ordained, Joseph Brunet and Jean d'Horgny. The "little company", as Vincent was to call it all through his life, was at last a reality and not just a project written down on paper.
Burning the boats
Vincent realised that the time had come for him to burn his boats. He had reached the point of no return. He decided, first of all, to dispose of his personal property. On the same day, and in the same notary's office as the three companions had signed their act of entrance into the Institute, he freely and irrevocably renounced all his paternal inheritance in favour of his brothers and sisters and their children. This is an interesting document because it gives us some idea of Vincent's property and the financial situation of his family.
The most important item was the sum of 900 livres (had he inherited this from Mde. de Gondi?) that Vincent ha
already advanced to his brothers to pay off their debts, and a farmstead comprising farmhouse, woods and arable lands which he left to one of his sisters. Problems must have arisen at the time the deed was to be executed and this explains why four years later, in 1630, Vincent had a new will drawn up, leaving the same goods to the same beneficiaries. The properties donated by Vincent now came into the hands of his executors, M. Louis de Saint Martin d'Agès and his son Caesar. There are some interesting differences between the first and second documents. The most significat difference is that in the deed of gift of 1626 there is only mention of goods inherited from his father; in the will dated 1630 reference is made to inheritances from father and mother. [16]
So the death of Vincent's mother must have occurred in the interval between the two wills being made and not, as Coste thought, when he calculated she must have died before 1626. [17] If this was the case then Providence had asked of the new Founder an even more painful act of detachment than his voluntary renunciation of his property.
Another death during these years was to sadden Vincent's heart. Cardinal Bérulle died suddenly while saying Mass on 2nd October, 1629. A contemporary poet captured the impression made by this event in a beautiful couplet: "Coepta sub extremis nequeo dum Sacra Sacerdos perficere, at saltem victima perficiam".
"If I cannot complete the holy Sacrifice as priest then I will at least do so as victim."
The departure of Bérulle, as we shall see, was to have important political consequences. In spite of the fact that Vincent had been distancing himself from his former spiritual guide, and that in latter years they were practically enemies, Bérulle's death saddened Vincent who continued to speak of him with affection. [18] In was as if some invisible hand were knocking down, one after another, the pillars which had been his support at the beginning of his mission. Marguerite de Silly in 1625, his mother in 1627 or 1628, Bérulle in 1629. He was losing past friends but future friend were gathering round him.
The foundation contract stipulated that would be members of the Cngregation had to renounce every ecclesiastical office or benefice. Vincent had to be the first to comply. Of
all the benefices he had acquired in the years of his wordly aspirations, only one remained. This was the one he loved best, the parish of Clichy whose titular appointment he had retained through all the trials of the previous 15 years. Now the time had come to give up Clichy. He did this in that same year, 1626. We know this because according to yet another legal document, 1630, we learn that he had received from his successor, Jean Souillard, the last 100 livres of the 400 livres stipulated for the transfer. Vincent's realism and strong financial acumen would not allow him to hand over the parish "purely and simply as a gift, with no pension" as Abelly believed. [19] Such were the customs of his time. Had not his predecessor as principal of the Bons Enfants exacted an annual pension of 200 livres for the rest of his life? [20] Perhaps it is in this sense of not asking for a life pension that we should understand Abelly's phrase "purely and simply". After all, the flourishing parish of Clichy was worth a good deal more than the pile of ruined buildings known as the Collège de Bons Enfants. [21]
Vincent gave up the Bons Enfants, too. The College had been made over to him personally but the Archbishop of Paris had intended it to house the Congregation. So as soon as the Institute received afficial approval from the same Archbishop, Vincent had the property put in the name of the Congregation. The Archbishop issued the decree of collective ownership on 20th July, 1626. But there must have been a legal problem, perhaps because the Congregation had not, as yet, received royal approval. Once this was obtained a second episcopal decree was published. [22]
"The most distinguished member of my family"
Vincent's detachment from temporal goods was matched by a degree of spiritual detachment that is hard to asses
because there is no direct testimony to it. One single incident at this time can shed some light on this hidden process. One day (it must have been in 1629 or 1630) one of Vincent's nephews turned up at St. Lazare. You could tell a mile off that the good man was a peasant. His appearance, and especially his clothes, marked him out as a typical peasant from that locality. Vincent felt ashamed to acknowledge that desperately poor and down at heel relation. He arranged for the man to be brought in unobtrusively. This was the old demon of his youth coming back to tempt him, the embarrassment he felt at having to go through the streets of Dax with a father who was badly dressed and lame. The bad impulse only lasted a moment and he quickly overcame it. He ran out of the house and embraced and kissed his relative openly in the street. Then he took him by the arm and led him into the college courtyard. He sent for all the members of the Company and introduced his nephew to each one saying, "This is the most distinguished member of my family." It was visiting time. Vincent repeated the introduction for every visitor. Canon Saint Martin personally witnessed the event and it is he who tells the story.
It seems that the main reason for the nephew's visit was that he had come to consult his uncle about a promise of marriage. Might he not have come also to present some claim to the property allocated by Vincent in 1626? In actual fact, by the terms of the will drawn up in 1630, one of the nephews, Thomas Daigrand who was the son of Vincent's older sister, was better provided for. Vincent had to drain the chalice to the dregs. His nephew had no money for the return journey. He was reluctant to use community money so he begged an alms from the Marquise de Maignalay, the pious sister of M. de Gondi. With the 10 crowns she donated, the young man set off on the 180 leagues (700 Kilometres) return journey which he made on foot of course. Furthermore, at the next community exercise Vincent accused himself in front of everyone, of having been ashamed of his rough and badly dressed nephew and of wanting him to be brought secretly to his room. [23] At last, the earlier Vincent who dreamed of worldly success and looked on the priesthood as a means of advancing his family's fortunes, was buried once and for all.
Vincent had crossed all the bridges and had now reached the other bank of his life in the company of that handful of young priests. Only one of them, Du Coudray, had turned 40;the friend he had known longest, Portail, was not yet 36 and they all looked to Vincent as their father and spiritual guide, the motivating force behind their apostolate, the one who would orientate them in doctrine and organise the little group. It was a community that had to be built up from thefoundations even while the stones that comprised it were still being fashioned. Vincent, without daring to say so, (he would say it later on when old age and the passage of time would help him overcome any inhibitations of false modesty), was thinking of St. Benedict, St. Bruno and St. Ignatius as they started their life's work. The task ahead was enormous and there would be no shortage of problems.
